be giving a presentation on the benefits
of using music to help treat Alzheimer’s
and dementia the first question we
should ask is what is dementia because
many people believe it is a specific
disease or disorder but rather it’s
actually a term used to just describe
symptoms there’s many Kate there’s many
different types of dementia however the
most popular one or rather most
notorious one is known as Alzheimer’s
disease Alzheimer’s disease is a
degenerative brain disorder it causes
memory loss and there are three
different stages there’s the early stage
which results in things such as Miss
placing car keys or forgetting where you
left your license there’s mid-stage
which could include forgetting where
your house is for getting locations of
streets and then there’s late stage
which includes the losing the ability to
walk and losing the ability to speak the
population affected is primarily over
the age of 65 however as the years go on
we’re starting to realize that younger
and younger people are developing
Alzheimer’s there are over 45 million
people in the world suffering from some
form of dementia and predicted by the
year 2050 there will be over a hundred
and thirty million people in the United
States alone they spend over two hundred
thirty six billion dollars caring for
people with Alzheimer’s disease and
Alzheimer’s ends up killing over 700,000
people annually and one in three people
over the age of 65 will die with some
form of dementia now sadly there is no
cure for Alzheimer’s disease there’s
only treatments to try to slow it down
and keep it from getting to the late
stage and these include cholinesterase
inhibitors dope is ill and momentum and
these three medications which are the
most prescribed medications for
Alzheimer’s disease also included all
the same side effects which include
nausea vomiting and even in some cases
depression and someone who is already
suffering from the burden of Alzheimer’s
and dementia it’s really hard to be able
to have those side effects and like I’d
like to share a quote from a documentary
titled a live inside
and is in medicine we focus on numbers
we are too focused on treating the
disease rather than the person and this
quote spoke to me because through my
work with my CBS l as well as dealing
with other people with ailments I’ve
learned that there is a lot more to
health than just blood pressure
cholesterol it’s about the humanity and
dignity of the person it plays so much
more it placed so much into health and i
believe is not properly not properly
thought of when medical officials look
at it so then comes in music therapy
which is what my senior project is and
it’s designed towards address addressing
that humanity side of medicine that we
don’t think of dr. dan cohen was the
first person that kind of established
this he made the documentary alive
inside he went to multiple nursing homes
and places are cared for people with
dementia and he wanted to see how
implementing music could help them and
he found out through his research that
it actually helped a tremendous amount
not only did it bring happiness and
overall lighten the mood of them but it
was also able to help them bring back
certain memories and the reason that
works is because a music association and
what music association is is that our
brain creates pathways between hearing a
certain song and attaching it to a
memory so if you were to hear a song on
the radio you might remember something
that happened a week ago the same way if
we sing A Christmas Carol you might
think of a time years ago and the reason
that this is hard for Alzheimer’s
patients is because they lose these
memories also because they don’t have
access to the music when they’re unable
to hear the music they’re unable to
reach the memories are attached them so
the point of this project is that by
introducing that music again they’re
able to liven up those pathways and be
able to have those memories again and
the way it is introduced is by people
like me independent people going to
these clinics and interviewing
individuals when you interview them you
figure out where they’re from what age
they were around when they live certain
areas because an older man in
Mississippi listen to something much
different than it’s one year old who
lived in New York after this you get
iPods and you create music playlists
after loading them onto the ipods you
get them to them and you teach them how
to use it and you listen to the mute
with them and you’re able to bring back
music that they haven’t heard in decades
and it’s a really wonderful thing and
one shares some of my experiences we
always talk about CBS l being a really
happy really just amazing thing to do
and it is to some degree but this
project has been nothing short of an
emotional roller coaster because you
have the P that you have the highs of it
where I get to sing about champagne with
an 80 year old war vet and just have the
sharing the moment of happiness with him
and then there’s also the downside to it
where I’m talking to a woman and she
doesn’t remember my name halfway through
the conversation and one of the stories
I’d like to end on is really what this
project project has meant to me and how
it changed me before starting this I
thought like many people the Alzheimer’s
patients were people who were shells of
former humans they were you know they
had an inability to really process was
going on and that I wasn’t so sure about
the project cuz I was thought I was just
going to talk to someone who wasn’t able
to talk to me and then I sat down with a
woman who really changed my whole
perspective when she communicated to me
that she knew she had a daughter and it
hurt her so much knowing that her
daughter would come and she would not be
able to recognize her daughter and the
rest of her family she would not be able
to know but she knows she has it but she
doesn’t have the memory of all the time
spent with them and what I’d like to
leave you with is how happy she was to
spend 10 minutes talking about her life
so with the small with the small amount
of time we’re able make such a huge
impact and that’s the end of my talk
[Music]
[Applause] you