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‘Music brought my mother back to us’
SALLY MAGNUSSON ON HOW PERSONAL PLAYLISTS CAN HELP TAME DEMENTIA
IN the darkest days of her mother Mamie’s battle with dementia, the broadcaster Sally Magnusson found hope in an unexpected place. “My mother was always singing,” she explains. “We realised, as her grip on things began to loosen, that her connection to songs was as strong as ever. After singing, she was more alert. It was taking her back to a place of familiarity and belonging.”
Magnusson adds: “Music, more than anything else, was keeping my mother with us.”
After Mamie died, in April 2012, Magnusson discovered an American charity which was already delivering personal music on iPods to people in care homes with positive results.
With no similar work being developed here, Magnusson decided do it herself, and set up Playlist for Life in 2013. The charity
aims to make it possible for every person with dementia – whether in their own home or in a care home – to have access to a playlist of personally meaningful music from their life, delivered via an iPod.
What happened between Magnusson and her mother was not a coincidence – research has shown that meaningful music offers a universal key to unlocking individuality, to “bringing back” that person, as Magnusson explains it, to a sense of themselves, as well as supporting family and wider social connections.
A recent study by the University of Utah confirmed that listening to a playlist of music can help people with dementia.
“People with dementia are confronted by a world that is unfamiliar to them, which causes disorientation and anxiety,” says Jeff Anderson, associate professor in radiology at the university and contributing author on the study.
“We believe music will tap into the salience network of the brain that is still relatively functioning. In our society, the diagnoses of dementia are snowballing and are taxing resources to the max.
“No one says playing music will be a cure for Alzheimer’s, but it might make the symptoms more manageable, decrease the cost of care and improve a patient’s quality of life.”
IN January, the ILC Utley Foundation report on Dementia and Music – which was the first analysis of the full landscape of musical interventions available for people living with dementia, including recommendations for expanding their use as the incidence of dementia increases – was launched at the House of Lords.
The report recommended: “Given the relative affordability of digital interventions, we want all people with dementia to be able to access interventions such as (but not limited to) Playlist for Life by 2020.”
Sarah Metcalfe, Playlist for Life’s chief executive, who represented the charity on the Commission for Dementia and Music, says: “This is a hugely significant report. It shows there is a lot of evidence about music reducing the need for drugs – we heard of one care home in Glasgow where playlists were being prescribed instead of drugs, for example. And it is bringing people back together, helping care staff get to know people in a meaningful way.”
Last year Playlist for Life trained 1600 health and care staff in 98 organisations, and it now has 53 “help points” around the UK, giving information for people who want to use a playlist and offering support from volunteers to anyone who gets stuck. Now The Herald is teaming up with the charity and will publish a celebrity’s favourites every week.
The charity has its own app, which turns a mobile phone into a playlist-creating and listening device, and is training people to be “music detectives”, to help families track down the songs that mean something to them. One of the charity’s music detectives, Peter Grech, was inspired to create the resource 100 Years: A Century of Song, based on his research of the most popular songs between 1915 and 2015.
“At the time of writing the book, there
One care home in Glasgow prescribed playlists instead of drugs
was no dementia in my family, although two aunts have advanced Alzheimer’s,” he explains. “I had already been involved in reminiscence work, so compiling the book was something I thought might be useful.”
He adds: “Just for our own history to be passed on or recorded in some way, it enables you to have a discussion with someone about the events of your, or their life. My dad used to tell lots of stories about when he was a boy and after he died I realised that, without having things written down and shared, those stories fade away.”
Metcalfe agrees. “Finding tunes and sharing memories is a great way to connect the generations,” she says. “One day, yes, your playlist might be useful if you develop dementia, but even if you don’t you should start making it now, because it is fun. Ours is an ageing population and we are already encouraged to think about early living wills and powers of attorney – making your Playlist for Life should be on that list too, and we are already working with some solicitors who are doing that.”
MAKING a playlist is simple, Metcalfe says. “Your Playlist for Life is all the songs and music that are special to you, brought together in one place,” she says. “It could be the first dance from your wedding, a song your mum used to sing or even an ad jingle that brings back nights on the sofa. You may be adding tunes months, or even years, after you started.”
She adds: “A good way to start is simply by getting a phone and looking for tunes and you will find one tune leads to another.”
The charity recommends using sites such as YouTube, Spotify or iTunes.
Metcalfe adds: “A playlist-building session with someone else can be a lovely way to spend time, sharing the stories and memories that make each tune special. Whatever the music, it’s the memories that make them special. Recording the stories behind the songs is a good way to help others understand the meaning behind them.”
As Grech points out, finding the music that matters to someone with dementia can be challenging. “It’s tricky – where do you start with someone who can’t tell you their musical memories?” he says. “The internet is very useful but can only tell you so much. It’s not just about music, it’s also what was happening in the world, where music was heard, even family preferences and restrictions.
“Music charts can tell you what was popular but you have to look elsewhere to figure out how people heard music – in the cinema or dance hall? On the radio? At school or the village fete?
“The further you go back, the harder it is because, simply, those were different times. You have to start looking at sheet music sales, because that’s how most people came across new music, especially before the radio became commonplace.”
For Magnusson, who was named 2017 Scotswoman of the Year by The Herald’s sister title the Evening Times, creating Playlist for Life was about giving people hope.
She says: “As any family will know, dementia is a very despairing place to be – you feel you are losing this person you love so much and there is nothing you can do.
“My mother once described it as being ‘on a long road, getting further and further away from myself’. But right to the end of her life, she was able to be brought back to a sense of herself, and brought back to us, by music.
“Words, which were otherwise deserting her, making conversation very difficult, returned as if by magic to her when she sang.”
Magnusson adds: “That’s what I want to tell people. I want to shout about it actually – really get it out there – that there is hope. Even in despair, there is something that can help.”
‘HOW IT HELPED US’
IT was music – and a wee dance or two – that brought Harry and Margaret O’Donnell together almost 32 years ago. “I’d been on my own for about eight years and my children were grown up a bit, so I was talked into going to a singles club in Paisley with my sister,” says Margaret.
“As soon as I met Harry, I knew we were going to be together.”
She smiles: “He had obviously liked the look of me too, as he asked me to dance and that was that. He was the love of my life.”
Harry was diagnosed with dementia in 2009, at the age of 81.
“It was little things we noticed at first – memory lapses, not being sure what was going on at times,” adds Margaret.
“The diagnosis was still a shock. We had no idea what it would entail. It is only when you live with someone who has dementia that you realise how hard it is for them, for you. It really robs that person of themselves.”
Harry’s condition deteriorated and eventually he moved in to Craigielea residential care home in Renfrew, a few miles from his childhood home. It was hard for Margaret, who says she often left in tears, because Harry had simply stopped responding to her.
“When I first heard about Playlist for Life, I wasn’t sure how it could help,” she says. “But the difference in Harry when he started to listen to the songs we put together for him – it was absolutely amazing. None of us could quite believe it.” She adds: “He had become very withdrawn and we had no conversation any more. But when he listened to the music, he started to sing along, tapping his foot and his hand on the table.”
Margaret pauses. “His eyes changed – before, they were dim, almost unfocused, like they weren’t really registering anything. But when those special songs came on, the ones that meant the most to him, I saw the sparkle come back into his eyes. I saw the recognition and that gave me hope.”
Harry’s playlist included songs he had grown up listening to, such as We’ll Meet Again and I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen, as well as classical favourites he and Margaret enjoyed. And of course, there were the songs they danced to. “Once, Twice, Three Times a Lady, was our song,” smiles Margaret. “I think Harry just loved music, it was a part of him.”
Margaret noticed that for long periods after they listened and sang along to the playlist, Harry was more lucid. “It brought him back to me,” she says. “Even though he couldn’t really talk, or walk, or do very much for himself, I always knew he was in there somewhere.”
Harry died two years ago.
“I wasn’t very sure what Playlist for Life would do at first but I knew that anything that might bring back some quality of life for Harry was worth taking a risk for,” she says. “It made the last few years of his life much, much happier than it would have been, and I will be ever grateful for that.”