Using profound sounds to heal
DAVID TOBIN took to the stage at a technology conference in Los Angeles and asked 500 people to close their eyes and open their ears to hear a textured, layered soundscape that he calls an “Audiojack.”
A thousand eyes clamped shut as they heard a ball thudding into a glove and the crack of a baseball bat as if they were at the ballpark.
“How does what you’re hearing make you feel? What does it make you remember?” Tobin asked the group, who’d gathered to learn how technology can improve the lives of our rapidly aging population.
“It’s all up to you to imagine,” Tobin said.
Taking back our imaginations from an onslaught of words, images, video and other stimuli is his goal with Audiojack — so named, he says, because he hopes listeners will get “jacked” by the sounds.
When a friend’s mother played the soundscape for dementia patients at a senior center, Tobin — a former television producer and one-time manager of the Roxy Theater on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip — began to realize he’d made something useful with a broad appeal.
Senior citizens with even the most advanced memory loss have responded profoundly.
One elderly listener who didn’t speak a complete sentence in weeks was able to articulate memories triggered by the sound of cooking breakfast or of a tiger in the wild.
A study by George Mason University showed improved brain function for people with moderate to severe dementia who used Audiojack over a fourmonth period.
Tobin sells the Audiojacks for institutional use with lesson plans and prompts, but it’s also available in mobile app form for $14.99.