{"id":109,"date":"2019-04-11T10:01:49","date_gmt":"2019-04-11T17:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/careerboardnetwork.com\/blog\/?p=109"},"modified":"2019-04-11T10:01:49","modified_gmt":"2019-04-11T17:01:49","slug":"music-plays-a-leading-role-in-new-health-products-for-alzheimers-and-dementia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/careerboardnetwork.com\/blog\/?p=109","title":{"rendered":"Music Plays a Leading Role in New Health Products for Alzheimer’s and Dementia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Link to original article: https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/articles\/business\/8506667\/music-alzheimers-dementia-therapy-treatment-health-products<\/a><\/p>\n

by Andy Hermann<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be able to express a song, you\u2019re literally capitalizing on the whole brain,\u201d says Andy Tubman of Musical Health Technologies.<\/p>\n

On a recent Thursday at OPICA, an adult daycare center in West Los Angeles, a music therapist named Andy Tubman leads a group of 10 seniors through a sing-along of \u201cAmerica the Beautiful.\u201d As the music starts, he points to his ear. \u201cListen for the words,\u201d he coaches.<\/p>\n

The seniors — all experiencing \u201csome degree of cognitive decline,\u201d as Tubman puts it — start hesitantly at first. But with the therapist\u2019s encouragement, most are soon belting out the familiar tune. \u201cOh my goodness, you\u2019re singers!\u201d Tubman effuses, as aging vocal cords strain to reach the high notes of \u201cabove the fruited plain.\u201d<\/p>\n

They\u2019re also helped by a unique feature on the track they\u2019re singing along to: a soothing male voice that speaks each lyric before it\u2019s sung. This comes especially in handy on the song\u2019s next verse, the seldom-heard, \u201cO beautiful for patriot dream, that sees beyond the years.\u201d But for people with advanced Alzheimer\u2019s disease or dementia, remembering the first verse of \u201cAmerica the Beautiful\u201d can be a challenge, too — hence the spoken-word prompts built into the therapeutic music program called SingFit, developed by Tubman\u2019s company, Musical Health Technologies.<\/p>\n

Founded in 2012 by Tubman and his sister, Rachel Francine, Musical Health Technologies is one of several companies developing products based on a growing body of scientific evidence that music can be a powerful tool in the treatment of Alzheimer\u2019s and dementia. \u201cTo be able to express a song, you\u2019re literally capitalizing on the whole brain,\u201d says Tubman, a licensed music therapist and the main designer of his company\u2019s suite of singing programs for eldercare facilities, which is called SingFit Prime. \u201cLanguage centers, timing centers, motor centers, planning centers — you get this whole brain exercise.\u201d<\/p>\n

SingFit Prime, which Musical Health Technologies launched in 2014, focuses on using music as an interactive tool, but even passive music listening stimulates the brain in ways that can be beneficial to Alzheimer\u2019s patients. A 2018 study at University of Utah Health used real-time MRI scans of patients\u2019 brain activity to demonstrate that familiar music lit up areas of the brain, like the supplemental motor area, that remain active in patients with advanced Alzheimer\u2019s, even as activity in speech and memory pathways declines as the disease progresses. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis might be a sort of window where you can reach patients with Alzheimer\u2019s disease, because it\u2019s a part of the brain that still tends to be functioning until very late in their whole disorder,\u201d says Dr. Jeff Anderson, one of the co-authors of the study. <\/p>\n

Anderson notes that part of the inspiration for the study was the 2014 documentary Alive Inside, which showed patients with extremely advanced Alzheimer\u2019s appearing to become animated and lucid in response to familiar music. As powerful as that film was, its depiction of Alzheimer\u2019s patients interacting with music was anecdotal. Anderson\u2019s colleagues, and the philanthropist who funded their study, thought that \u201cmaybe there\u2019s some way to put a little more science behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Netherlands, another set of Alzheimer\u2019s-related products began not as a scientific experiment, but as an art project. In 2015, Dutch artists and designers Roos Meerman and Tom Kortbeek created the Tactile Orchestra, a large wall installation covered in soft fur that responds to different kinds of touch with a range of sounds and musical tones. Soon after they debuted the project, they were contacted by several Dutch health organizations. \u201cThis multisensoric experience that your art piece provides will be very useful maybe for our healthcare process, for people with dementia,\u201d Kortbeek recalls them saying.<\/p>\n

Last year, Meerman and Kortbeek launched Kozie, a company that takes the tactile, multisensory experience of the Tactile Orchestra and applies it to therapeutic music products. Their first product, the KozieWe, is a modified version of the Tactile Orchestra, designed for group therapy sessions in which the goal is to get Alzheimer\u2019s patients connecting and interacting with one another. They also introduced the KozieMe, a pillow with built-in speakers that can play familiar music or comforting messages for the patient, activated with a simple touch or a squeeze. Last month, both products made their U.S. debut at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival; Kortbeek and Meerman say the response was overwhelmingly positive and they\u2019ve already begun plans for introducing Kozie products to the U.S. market.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole goal is to make healthcare really personal,\u201d says Meerman, who watched her own grandmother struggle with dementia. \u201cMusic is really a way to connect with a person that has dementia.\u201d <\/p>\n

At Tubman\u2019s SingFit Prime session at OPICA, you can see those connections happening. Both during and between songs, Tubman gently encourages the seniors to participate not only by singing, but by clapping, tapping their feet, and finishing his sentences. After \u201cAmerican the Beautiful,\u201d he introduces the next song with a few clues: It\u2019s a city to the north, with a famous bridge. \u201c\u2018I Left My Heart in\u2019 \u2026\u201d he says, voice trailing off.<\/p>\n

\u201cSan Francisco!\u201d several participants call out.<\/p>\n

All of the session\u2019s songs are centered around the theme of geography: Other selections include \u201cWhen the Saints Go Marching In,\u201d \u201cTennessee Waltz\u201d and \u201cWhen Irish Eyes Are Smiling.\u201d \u201cThe theme keeps people on task better,\u201d Tubman explains. Other SingFit Prime curricula are centered around such themes as pets, holidays and the outdoors.<\/p>\n

A SingFit app on Tubman\u2019s iPad, played through external speakers, provides the soundtrack. Within the app, Tubman can control the volume of both the guide singer and the \u201clyric coach,\u201d that speaking voice that telegraphs the line of each song. The guide singer is not Tony Bennett, but a convincing facsimile; a Frank Sinatra impersonator on \u201cFly Me to the Moon\u201d and \u201cNew York, New York\u201d sounds even more like the real deal. Tubman says his company is \u201csnobby\u201d about their singers and arrangements, which are all original and paced so as to provide space for the lyric coach\u2019s prompts. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe really try to filter through so that the music is authentic,\u201d he explains. Kate Richards Geller, another music therapist who works with Tubman on SingFit, says they choose repertoire based on what she calls seniors\u2019 \u201csticky years\u201d — that formative period roughly between ages 13 and 23, \u201cthe years they were listening to [that] music and all those songs went in and stayed. That\u2019s what we\u2019re providing them is this opportunity to reenter that world.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the app, SingFit Prime provides eldercare centers with training for facilitators, props (at OPICA, brightly colored handkerchiefs prove especially popular) and detailed workbooks for each music session, which the facilitator can follow step-by-step to introduce each song, add trivia and commentary to encourage discussion and participation, and adjust the difficulty level depending on the group\u2019s response. The goal, Tubman explains, is to provide a \u201cturnkey\u201d product so that \u201cpeople who are not music therapists can utilize singing in a really powerful, robust way.\u201d He says over 430 senior communities around the U.S. currently use SingFit Prime, including assisted living, memory care facilities, and adult daycare centers like OPICA.<\/p>\n

By the time the group at OPICA finishes their 45-minute singing session, nearly all are fully engaged to a degree that\u2019s rare among patients with advanced Alzheimer\u2019s or dementia. During the final song, \u201cNew York, New York,\u201d one man begins to weep; most join Tubman in forming a seated but enthusiastic kick line. As the group disperses, another man laments that the session is ending before they got to his favorite city, then bursts into an impromptu rendition of another geographic Sinatra classic, \u201cChicago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much clinical work is still to be done before scientists and music therapists fully understand music\u2019s effect on Alzheimer\u2019s patients, or how best to effectively employ music as a therapeutic tool within the Alzheimer\u2019s community. \u201cIt\u2019s not any kind of cure,\u201d Anderson cautions. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing that changes the course of the disease.\u201d But studies like the one Anderson co-authored, and the early successes of products like Kozie and SingFit, suggest that music\u2019s potential to improve the quality of life for those with Alzheimer\u2019s — and, possibly, its power to at least mitigate the long-term effects of the disease — has yet to be fully realized.<\/p>\n

\u201cSinging takes place in the whole brain. There are many redundant pathways,\u201d says SingFit\u2019s Francine. \u201cYou start to sing and then brain plasticity takes over… It\u2019s really mind-boggling what they\u2019re finding out about the brain and its ability to heal itself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Link to original article: https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/articles\/business\/8506667\/music-alzheimers-dementia-therapy-treatment-health-products by Andy Hermann \u201cTo be able to express a song, you\u2019re literally capitalizing on the whole brain,\u201d says Andy Tubman of Musical Health Technologies. On a recent Thursday at OPICA, an adult daycare center in West Los Angeles, a music therapist named Andy Tubman leads a group of 10 seniors … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Music Plays a Leading Role in New Health Products for Alzheimer’s and Dementia”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":110,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seniorliving"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t