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Dr. Oliver Sacks, Professor of Neurology & Psychiatry, Columbia University
Transcript
Where I work at a hospital and at a number of old age homes, there are a lot of people who have Alzheimer's or other dementias of one sort or another.
Some of them are confused, some are agitated, some are lethargic, some have almost lost language.
But all of them, without exception, respond to music. This is especially true of old songs and songs they once knew.
These seem to touch springs of memory and emotion which may be completely inaccessible to them.
It is most amazing to see people who are out of it and sort of dark respond suddenly to a music therapist and a familiar song.
At first they will smile, then perhaps keep time, and then join in.
They sort of regain that time of their lives and that identity they had at the time of their lives when they first heard the song.
Dr. Oliver Sacks is a noted author and Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center.
It is an amazing thing to see and, of course, to experience.
That sort of lucidity and pleasure can last for hours afterwards.
A common thing in Alzheimer's is to lose one's memory for events and to lose one's biography, one's personal memories. It seems they cannot be accessed directly. But personal memories are "embedded", to some extent, in things like music. This is especially true about songs one knew, or which one learned, and especially songs which one sang.
So the past which is not recoverable in any other way seems to be sort of "embedded in amber", if you will, in music. People can regain a sense of identity, at least for a while.
One does not have to be especially musical to respond to music, to recognize music, to react to music, emotionally.
Virtually everyone does, and they will continue to do so, despite a severe dementia.
In a severe dementia, one may have lost the power of language and may have lost most of one's "event memory", so one can remember very little of one's past. But one will always remember songs one has heard and sung and familiar music.
The parts of the brain which respond to music are very close to the parts of the brain concerned with memory, emotion and mood.
So familiar songs will bring back memories, perhaps, of when the music was originally heard. It may have been an outing, something on Coney Island, the kids were there. All this which has been lost in amnesia will come back, as if it were embedded in a familiar song. It can come back.
In amnesia, whether or not in Alzheimer's, you lose your life. You have lost your past, you have lost your story, you have lost your identity to a considerable extent.
You can at least get some feel of it and regain it, for a little while, with familiar music.
New research from the University of California-Davis uncovers associations between music and memory. It furthers development of music-based therapy for people with dementias such as Alzheimer's. One conclusion: "Providing patients with MP3 players and customized playlists could prove to be a quality-of-life improvement strategy that would be both effective and economical."
Whether it's the first dance at your wedding or the theme song of your high school years, music can trigger a flood of memories. New research is mapping these linked musical memories to areas of the brain least effected by dementias such as Alzheimer's, offering novel therapies.
The Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain is the nucleus of a dynamic, multidisciplinary endeavor. The institute brings together Columbia university researchers and clinicians to uncover the causes of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other age-related brain diseases and discover ways to prevent and cure these diseases.
