From: unk...@googlegroups.com   
      
   Music and memory: For dementia patients, iPod experiment may be a link back to   
   their younger selves   
      
   Carrie Antlfinger, Associated Press | October 30, 2014 1:50 PM ET   
      
      
   Mike Knutson, 96, smiles as he listens to music on an iPod. He is part of a   
   study through the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee that is looking at whether   
   mood and  behaviour is altered when dementia and Alzheimer's patients listen   
   to a personalized set    
   of music.   
      
   Carrie Antlfinger/AP   
      
      
   Mike Knutson, 96, smiles as he listens to music on an iPod. He is part of a   
   study through the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee that is looking at whether   
   mood and behaviour is altered when dementia and Alzheimer's patients listen to   
   a personalized set    
   of music.   
       
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   UNION GROVE, Wis. -- Mike Knutson taught himself to play the harmonica as a   
   child, and the 96-year-old sang with his family for most of his life. Even   
   now, as he suffers from dementia, music is an important part of his life   
   thanks to a study looking at    
   the impact of a U.S.-wide music program aimed at helping dementia patients.   
      
   The study being led by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is the largest   
   yet on the impact of the Music and Memory program, which is in hundreds of   
   nursing homes across the U.S. and Canada, said program founder Dan Cohen.   
   Similar studies will be    
   conducted in Utah and Ohio.   
      
   Researchers are monitoring the responses of 1,500 Alzheimer's and dementia   
   patients who were given iPods at Wisconsin nursing homes through the program,   
   which was highlighted in the documentary Alive Inside, which was honoured at   
   the Sundance Film    
   Festival this year.   
      
   Their mental state will then be compared to the same number of people in 100   
   other nursing homes who haven't received iPods. Knutson is often sleepy, but   
   he perks up when nurses put headphones on him or when his family sings with   
   him during visits at the    
   Wisconsin Veteran's Home in Union Grove, south of Milwaukee.   
      
   He smiles, taps his feet and gently claps his hands upon hearing big-band   
   music, which is part of his personalized playlist.   
      
   "The music really does something to wake him up and help him to be more   
   engaged with what is going on around him," said his daughter, Barb Knutson,   
   who lives in Madison.   
      
   The state and UW-Milwaukee are investing about US$300,000 in the program and   
   study, money received through federal funds acquired from nursing home   
   penalties. The program will be expanded to another 150 Wisconsin nursing homes   
   next year.   
   For the study, nursing homes put together personalized playlists for   
   residents. Researchers then document residents' interactions, watch sleep   
   patterns, put on wrist monitors that track movement and collect music data.   
      
   The study started this summer, and final data should be available by next   
   summer.   
      
   "You may see the immediate effects shown on the residents, but we don't really   
   know if it actually has longer-term effects," said Jung Kwak, an associate   
   professor of social work at the university.   
      
   Researchers hope to determine whether music improves mood and behaviour, which   
   residents might benefit and then tailor activities accordingly. They also want   
   to see if music could someday reduce the need for prescription drugs, Kwak and   
   Cohen said.   
      
   Cohen, who founded Music and Memory in New York in 2006, said he hopes the   
   Wisconsin study informs the health care system of the program's benefits and   
   potential cost savings. He said there's also fear of visiting dementia   
   patients, so he hopes the    
   program will encourage families and friends to visit more often.   
      
   "Then [the patients] will feel more alive and won't feel as isolated in these   
   facilities," he said.   
      
   Related   
   Alive Inside, reviewed: Melodies that reach the unreachable can touch us, too   
   From head injury to math genius: On savant syndrome and the possibility of a   
   'little Rain Man within us all'   
      
      
   http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/10/30/music-and-memory-for-dem   
   ntia-patients-ipod-experiment-may-be-a-link-back-to-their-younger-selves/   
      
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