Study: Music Is Powerful Enough To Resist Alzheimer’s & Dementia

The Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease claims that the distressing effects of the condition can subside for short periods of time when the patient hears songs that are important to them from their past.

Particular songs that call to us can ignite a certain physical response when we listen to them. This sensation, called Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, or ASMR, appears to sear those songs harder into our brains. Because this tingling response catalogs those songs differently, the melodies can cause the condition’s heartbreaking symptoms to fade temporarily while the sufferer listens to them.

Jeff Anderson, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor in Radiology at the University of Utah Health, says: “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 disease, but it might make the symptoms more manageable, decrease the cost of care and improve a patient’s quality of life.”

See Karlie Powell, Study: Music Is Powerful Enough To Resist Alzheimer’s & Dementia, Your EDM, March 24, 2019.