How Music Can Reach Dementia Patients

An amazing discovery of music's power over the brain

An Australian study has found an affordable alternative to music therapy for improving the standard of living for those with dementia. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Early on in my work with Alzheimer’s patients, I had the privilege of playing piano music for dementia patients every Friday morning in a “daycare” drop off center in Virginia.

What I continually found was that as soon as I played octaves on the piano (see film on Piano Music for Alzheimer’s), the patients would:

1. Stop or slow down the madness
2. Pivot to see (and feel) where the sound was coming from
3. Sit, listen and “normalize” for the 45 to 60 minutes of piano playing
4. Respond, converse, joke and interact with one another after the music stopped.

One day when I came in to play at the center, there was a lady seated in a wheelchair in the far corner of the room, screaming repeatedly “FOUR! FOUR! FOUR!” She stabbed her right arm across her chest, over her left shoulder and above her head every time she yelled “FOUR.”