The sing-along shows that can help dementia sufferers
Pippa Kelly explains how the return of the BBC’S ‘Singing Together’ could make magical connections with dementia sufferers
Underneath a huge shiny blue balloon announcing his 100th birthday, Second World War veteran Douglas Jakeman is
dancing to the jaunty strains of When You’re Smiling (The Whole World
Smiles With You). His moves are stylish, his rhythm superb, his hands flutter in perfect time to the beat.
Watching the video of this elegant man in his checked shirt and knitted waistcoat, it is hard to believe that he is blind. And it’s impossible to tell he has dementia. Or that he is sometimes frustrated and depressed. He is quite clearly having the time of his life.
In fact, it was only by telling him about his eight grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren and the crowd of family and friends waiting to celebrate with him, that his daughter Brenda could persuade her father to leave his care home room at all.
But once coaxed downstairs to find an Irish band playing one of his favourite songs, he got up from his wheelchair and danced – for almost an hour. “It was unbelievable,” says Brenda. Since moving into the Royal Star and Garter care home in the south-west London borough of Surbiton, Douglas has developed a newfound love of Irish ballads, which take him back to his childhood and his Dublin-born mother.
“He only visited Ireland once, but now he talks about his mum more than ever,” says Brenda. “Every song he sings brings him alive.”
I am all too aware of the power of meaningful music for those with dementia. My own mother lived with the condition for the last 10 years of her life. She loved Christmas and one of her favourite things was A Festival
of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge, broadcast by the BBC every Christmas Eve.
The day before she died, when Mum was barely with us and had lain immobile, unspeaking and mostly sleeping, for several weeks, I turned on the radio. As the chorister sang the first sweet notes of Once in Royal
David’s City, she opened her eyes. This was all she did, but it was enough. A connection had been made. It was profoundly moving and turned out to be the last time I saw her alive.
Despite being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a decade ago, 93-year-old Lily Sanders from Topsham, Devon, still knows the words to many of the hymns she learnt as a choirgirl. Her favourite is Love Divine, All Loves
Excelling, which her daughter Susan says is “word-perfect”, followed by Abide With Me.
Susan says that if and when the time comes to consider care homes for her mother, she’ll dismiss any that don’t offer music and singing, because she knows that “this is what makes Mum tick and keeps her alive”.
Familiar music has an almost magical ability to connect with people with dementia. Which is why soprano Lesley Garrett’s idea for the BBC to reintroduce its old schools radio programme Singing Together
– this time for older people and those who have dementia – is such a brilliant one. And I am determined to make it happen. Garrett made her suggestion at the launch of a report by the Commission on Dementia and Music, which proved, beyond doubt, that listening to and singing songs enhances the mood, speech, behavioural and psychological symptoms of those with dementia. Yet, despite the evidence, the report also revealed that good-quality music therapies are available in only 5 per cent of care homes, 70 per cent of whose residents have dementia. I had forgotten all about Singing
Together. It was a weekly programme, introduced in September 1939 to bring together schoolchildren evacuated at the outbreak of war, and ran on the BBC for 60 years. Just the mere mention of its name and I was back in my primary school convent, sitting at my desk, belting out One Man Went to
Mow with my Prep 3 classmates. Childhood memories are like that. Half a century has passed but once disturbed, my recollection of Singing
Together provoked in me such a comforting sense of continuity and community that, before I knew it, I was up in the loft searching out my old booklets, quaintly illustrated, complete with musical scores. Three hours later I found one, dated 1971.
It was just as I remembered, though smaller. The inside cover shows that the programme was broadcast on Mondays on Radio 4 from 11.01am to 11.20am. Just 19 minutes, once a week.
I was so taken with the whole idea – the nostalgia; the simple songs from different parts of the UK, each one with a rousing chorus and a strong beat; the obvious echoes between displaced children and older people in the unfamiliar, confusing confines of residential care – that I blogged about it and was quickly overwhelmed by an avalanche of online support.
So I wrote a letter to the BBC’S director-general, co-signed by key figures in the dementia sector, asking him to make it happen. Tony Hall wrote back, politely declining, citing dementia initiatives to which the corporation is already committed. This week, it launched a free sonic archive of 16,000 clips – from the sound of puddings being hurled about in The
Goon Show to the hum of Spitfires taking off. The hope is that the nostalgic audio files will be particularly helpful for dementia sufferers, and speak to those same deeply held memories that music can also trigger.
But downloadable noises are nothing compared with the life-enriching benefits a weekly sing-song to the radio would offer those with dementia and their hard-pressed families and carers. And let’s not forget that the BBC is obliged, under its public service remit, to engage audiences “in activities targeted to achieve specific outcomes that benefit society” – including the promotion of healthier living.
In her book, Where Memories
Go, broadcaster Sally Magnusson explores the neurological reasons behind music’s ability to connect with people, even when their dementia is very advanced, and discovers that it is because of the numerous elements involved – rhythm, melody, harmony, pitch – when the brain processes music. Many different cognitive functions are used, including the primary ones that only stop when we die.
Lesley Garrett says even when her aunt Joan’s dementia was so severe that she couldn’t remember her own children’s names, “at the sound of music she adored, sung by someone she adored, she would open her eyes, shake, and tears would pour down her face.” Moved by the experience, Garrett became patron of the Lost Chord, a Rotherham charity that helps improve the lives of people with dementia through music. The reintroduction of Singing
Together would allow everyone – regardless of age, postcode, mobility, mental capacity or Wi-fi provision (notoriously poor in residential homes) – to turn on the radio and, well, sing together. All it would take is a presenter – Gareth Malone springs to mind, but Garrett would be even better – and a short slot.
If Lord Hall is wary of introducing the programme nationally, it could be rolled out through local radio first.
Hilary Doxford, 58, from Yeovil, was diagnosed with dementia six years ago. She says, “For people who don’t have too many moments of joy in their week, singing along brings out the smiles and memories, and gives an opportunity to feel belonging again. Singing Together is obvious to me, I hope it’s obvious to the BBC. A small investment, a massive return on the scale of joy.” Over to you, Tony.