Memory and old age

03 May 25 - 07:28 PM (#4221994)
Subject: RE: Tech: Memory and old age
From: Helen

Hi gargoyle,

There have been a lot of news articles about this in Oz. I can trawl through some of the old news items and see if I can find more info. A lot of the articles I have read state that people with dementia remember songs from their youth better than what they had for breakfast that day.

I just did a quick internet search for it:

Music to our ears. New research guides the most effective approach to music and dementia

A link on that page is to:

Music Playlists for People with Dementia: Trialing A Guide for Caregivers

Something I tell people when I am thinking about my future self in an aged care facility is that if the musicians coming in to entertain us start singing "We'll Meet Again" or other songs from decades before I was born then I am going to get really, really annoyed. I'll be the person putting my hand up and shouting, "Play some Led Zeppelin! Yeah!"

If I am stuck in a wheelchair without the ability to wheel myself away when they play songs too old for me to relate to, I will probably chuck an old-biddy tantrum. LOL

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03 May 25 - 08:44 PM (#4221997)
Subject: RE: Tech: Memory and old age
From: Tattie Bogle

I thought there was another similar thread not so long ago, on the lines of “songs to sing in care homes” (and such places as day care centres for the elderly and dementia groups.). Any of us who have done this will recognise this phenomenon of people who are possibly non-verbal even on a day-to-day basis, suddenly joining in with songs from their youth that are being sung.
And yes, Helen, songs from either of the world wars are definitely out!

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04 May 25 - 12:36 AM (#4221999)
Subject: RE: Tech: Memory and old age
From: Sandra in Sydney

One of our earlier members would be sitting slumped in his chair in the nursing home, as always silent & unaware, until his mates arrived with their instruments.

After they started playing he was enjoying the music, & one day asked them a question about something from his days on the committee.

sandra

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04 May 25 - 12:58 AM (#4222000)
Subject: RE: Tech: Memory and old age
From: Joe Offer

I've been singing in retirement homes occasionally for over 30 years, and I really enjoy it. I've usually played the emcee and storyteller. One of the best experiences was the memory care home near my home in California. Our church choir would sing "carols" for Christmas and the Fourth of July. The first time we were there, I started the show by announcing, "Ladies and Gentlemen, our National Anthem." All those people stood up, put their hands on their hearts, and sang along. And they sang pretty darn well, all through the program. Their participation really touched me.
-Joe-

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04 May 25 - 01:17 AM (#4222001)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: Helen

Sandra and Joe, you have just reminded me of a thread I started - not that long ago, only like 26 years ago - OMG! - Old Folkies' Home/Retirement Village and it was still being discussed 6 years ago.

Briefly my idea was to hijack an established Old Folks Home by getting as many folkies, blues musos and other musicians to live there and we could be the entertainment for each others' enjoyment, as well as other residents, and even other old folks homes in the neighbourhood.

Obviously playing music together would also enhance our own brain functions.

I am now on the verge of turning 70 so I should get this project started because I'll probably need to move into a retirement village soon. :-D

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04 May 25 - 09:55 AM (#4222017)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw

Well I can't remember what colour my bedroom carpet is but I routinely find myself singing along to pop songs that I haven't heard for over half a century.

We have an extremely successful and thriving Memory Café here in Bude - Mrs Steve and another lady run it and I'm a mere volunteer (and I wouldn't miss it for the world). We try to get an act, songsters preferably, who'll do an hour or so at each meeting in our community hall. There's no prescription as to what songs should be in their playlists, but experience tells them, and us, that songs of approx. the sixties go down really well, especially if they have singalong bits in them. "Is This The Way To Amarillo" is a typical example of what goes down a storm, but anything goes really. I've recently joined a local band of shanty/folk singers, with me singing (for the first time in my life in public) and playing the tremolo harmonica (not my usual axe!). We're doing the Memory Café in a few weeks' time. That'll surprise 'em when they see me up there singing The Wellerman in my RNLI (lifeboat charity, yanks) polo shirt! I should think that The Song of the Western Men, aka Trelawney, will go down well yer in Cornwall!

Speaking of memory and old age, I'm nearly 74 and am the second youngest, by a short head, in the band. We will have the song words in front of us! ;-)

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04 May 25 - 01:29 PM (#4222025)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: John MacKenzie

My first wife recently died from cancer, and one of the things my son asked me when she was in hospital on palliative care, was what songs did she like when she and I were together. So I assume the idea was to play music that might penetrate her coma, and bring her back to consciousness again. I gave him the names of some of our old tunes, but I'm afraid I don't know what they did, or if there was any reaction.

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04 May 25 - 04:43 PM (#4222036)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: GUEST,sciencegeek51

at 74, this thread sure hits home LOL

actually, I've been racking my memory trying to pin down an early TV show that mom watched, on WNET I think, with a young woman who taught playing folks songs on the mountain dulcimer... the show's theme was her singing Dona, dona, dona

anyone remember this show?

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04 May 25 - 05:23 PM (#4222037)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: RTim

Me too...At 78 years old, I certainly suffered with losing my songs during the Covid time, and I sing so irregularly nowadays...Many are gone. Some I learnt 50 years or so ago are still there....however..!!
I remember tunes OK as long as I have the first line...I like Zoom sessions as I can have the words in front of me...and No one else can see them..

Tim Radford

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05 May 25 - 04:59 AM (#4222054)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: Sol

Interesting thread this.
A close relative of mine had dementia. When it came to the point there was no recognition when I visited, I would start singing a song from her younger days. She would join in and sing it right through, word perfect in perfect pitch without me. It never ceased to amaze me. I have had similar experiences with other elderly people who are basically non-communative due to dementia or aging problems.
As far as songs go, we probably all have our own favourite 'decade' for sure however, most of us know various songs that have been popular over the last century. A couple of years ago, I heard a teenager singing "We'll Meet Again". It did (pleasantly) surprise me, I must admit.
Music is a powerful tool in all aspects of life.

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05 May 25 - 06:08 AM (#4222060)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: Helen

Just to be clear, I am not disrespecting the song "We'll Meet Again".

My comment is more about the assumptions made by younger folks about which songs or music might be relevant to specific older generations. My point is that it would work better if the older generations could be asked about their favourite songs or tunes or music styles and the musicians could use those suggestions as a resource to plan their musical agenda when playing in an Aged Care setting.

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05 May 25 - 06:58 AM (#4222063)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw

Well we have a few folks in their nineties at our Memory Café, though most are younger than that. We get well-intentioned performers who include things such as Long Way to Tipperary, We'll Meet Again, Pack Up Your Troubles, White Cliffs of Dover and so on, and they always go down well (especially if song sheets are provided), but let's not forget that even many of those people in their nineties were nobbut kiddies when those songs were current!

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05 May 25 - 09:15 AM (#4222067)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: Sol

With reference to Helen's post (two above).
No need to apologise, your point was perfectly valid. I play Care Homes now and then. The sets are generally songs from the 1940s-70's period. As the age demographics change from year to year, the set lists get adjusted to suit. Songs sung used to be weighted with 1940/50s material however, currently we're playing mostly 1950/60s hits that appeal to the main age group in most Care Homes.
Horses for courses.

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05 May 25 - 10:17 AM (#4222072)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw

Couldn't agree more with that, Sol. We had a singer duo at the Memory Café last Friday...Let me see, what did we have...the aforementioned Amarillo, some Everly Brothers, Monkees, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Showaddywaddy, Cliff, Bill Haley, Dusty, Helen Shapiro... And just the ould warhorses by all of that lot, no obscure album tracks, damp squibs or B-sides! All good, and it doesn't pay to be too prescriptive, though maybe not any hard punk...

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05 May 25 - 10:42 AM (#4222073)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: Sol

Steve Shaw: ".... though maybe not any hard punk..."   

.... YET!

Wait till the all the aged punks get incarcerated into the "Hotel Canny-phone-ya" (circa 2035?). ;-)

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05 May 25 - 11:31 AM (#4222079)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: Mo the caller

Some of the songs that were 'before my time' are still in my memory because they were sung at family parties.
Never liked pop tunes at the time, why would I like them now.

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05 May 25 - 11:36 AM (#4222080)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: meself

I regularly play old folks' homes (I figure I'm old enough now myself that I don't have to be politically correct in my terminology when it comes to age), and I find people have always sung and continue to sing along with great enthusiasm to the World War era and other old 'sing-song' stuff, and I anticipate they always will, at least as long as I'm in the game, anyway. YMMV.

OTOH, I also put some fiddle into the act, and I've noticed in more recent years, that fewer and fewer people have the kind of gleeful response to it that used to be common. And it's rare now for someone to come up after to tell me that their father and all their uncles played fiddle ....

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05 May 25 - 04:42 PM (#4222095)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: Helen

Thanks Sol.

Changing the music list as the age demographic changes is exactly what I was hoping for in those performances. It's mathematical, really. If an audience member at a performance is in her/his 80's then the music s/he remembers most, and which refer to significant life-memories will probably be when s/he was in the teens or 20's or mid-life, so that would be up to about 60 years ago, so that takes us to around the 1960's, give or take a decade or so.

For me, my music listening was always there on the radio, and on an old secondhand radiogram with 78 rpm records and some vinyl records - and I love swing era music even now - but it was only when I was given a small transistor radio in my teens and we also bought a TV that I could start to hear the music of my choice.

The first vinyl record I ever bought was a Donovan album and my sister bought another of his albums on the same day. I also remember the first time I heard the Blind Faith album at a late-high school party. I was entranced. My first encounter with seeing someone playing the harp was Harpo Marx in a Marx Brothers movie. The first time I heard Tim Buckley and I thought he was whining and weird but his music later grew on me was in my first shared student house. In fact I discovered a lot of different music styles in shared houses that I would possibly have never learned to love - or hate in the case of a couple of folk-style performers I will refrain from naming. :-D

Here is a recent article on Oz ABC News related to this topic, although it focuses mainly on classical music:

Why musical memories from childhood are so strong

"Have you ever wondered why it's easier to remember music you heard decades ago compared to what you had for breakfast last week?

"'Music is remarkably resistant to forgetting,' says Steffen Herff, Leader of the Sydney Music, Mind, and Body Lab at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

"These musical memories often invoke details including what you saw and how you felt even decades after the event."

...

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05 May 25 - 04:51 PM (#4222096)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: Helen

This is the recent article I was thinking about, and not just because it is close to where I live. The whole article is worth readin:

Newcastle choir The Unforgettables using music to help people with dementia

...

"The choir was started in August last year after University of Newcastle Associate Professor Helen English discovered the need for the service from a close friend.

"'She said that her mother loved being in choirs, but she was developing dementia, and she could no longer really work in with a regular choir,' Ms English said.

"'She said, 'Helen, you must form a choir', and I thought 'Well, actually, I can do that.'

"Dr English enlisted the support of Michelle Kelly, an Associate Professor in clinical psychology.

"Dr Kelly's area of expertise was improving the lives of older people both with and without dementia.

"'This was an opportunity for both the person living with dementia and their family carer, where they could come along and be part of something that was beyond dementia,' Dr Kelly said."

...

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05 May 25 - 05:05 PM (#4222099)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: GUEST

I'll second Mo the Caller's comment. The songs I heard people singing at social events as a child in the 1950's that stick in my mind were from 'before my time'.

For me those 'of my time' were the ones from the BBC programs for schools. How many of those are recognised in the old folks home's** ?

**the places where people say "75 that's not old"

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05 May 25 - 06:07 PM (#4222104)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: JennieG

In my giddy youth I used to attend many dances and balls. Dances were whatever was currently popular - Ozzies of my generation would remember The Stomp......but bands which played for balls played music of an earlier era, and of course we knew all the words, because older music was still being played on radio so we grew up with it.

I can still remember the dance steps, too.

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05 May 25 - 06:28 PM (#4222107)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: Stilly River Sage

Today in a Wendy's hamburger restaurant the canned music played a piece from 1970 - by Grand Funk Railroad (Closer to Home - I'm Your Captain). I immediately was in that zone when I used to listen to it, in my high school years. My 36-year-old daughter was with me when I identified it to her, and then, as I thought about it, realized the song is 55 years old. It's fascinating and odd at the same time how a song like that can transport you, and it brings along a whole bunch of attendant memories. This is a good thing, and if one decides to write a memoir, using old music as triggers is a useful tool. (That album, along with Carole King's Tapestry, were the first two albums I bought on my own when I was earning some money in summer jobs.)

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06 May 25 - 03:46 AM (#4222118)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: The Sandman

on a positive note,trying to learn a new musical instrument is supposed to help stimulate the brain and memory, as is doing puzzles crosswords suduku etc.
It does seem sometimes as though old age is a battle to stop everything deteriorating, all the more reason to enjoy the here and now.

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06 May 25 - 04:00 AM (#4222121)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: The Sandman

I have been learning different instruments, exactly for the reason of trying to stimulate memory

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06 May 25 - 08:50 PM (#4222146)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw

Well after 30 years of specialising in blues harps for playing Irish/Scottish/ Northumbrian tunes, I'm suddenly having to use mostly tremolo harps with the shanty/folk band that has kindly recruited me. It's a learning curve all right, as it requires a different sort of muscle memory and I've rarely used tremolo harps before, and so far I've been mortified about the wrong notes I keep hitting. But with intensive practice I'm getting there (I think). I'm loving the opportunity to do all this new stuff at my tender age. Are you never too old? Don't ask me!

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07 May 25 - 02:57 AM (#4222155)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: BobL

So - who's playing nowadays the pop music of my formative years - Trad Jazz?

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07 May 25 - 03:53 AM (#4222158)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: John MacKenzie

Well BobL if you want to revive old memories, do what I do and listen to Tuba Skinny on YouTube. They certainly revive my memories of my youth, duffle coats and fragrant tobacco smoke from fancy pipes. My but we did feel grown up.

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12 May 25 - 09:11 AM (#4222418)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: MaJoC the Filk

MaJoC's Musical Aphorisms:

The music you recognise out of the corner of your ear will date from when you first started thinking you were a grownup. After that, most people are too busy actually being grownups to lay down those memories.

Everybody's middle-aged inside their own heads. Once you mention some singer or group that everybody knows about, and the youngsters say "Who's that?", *then* you realise you're old.

Full disclosure: I've been saying "I'm young for my age" for so long that I now should add ".... but with an increasing range of physical annoyances that slow me down".

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15 May 25 - 06:40 PM (#4222585)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: keberoxu

Along with sound and music,
I wonder if memories of smells and scents are vivid in old age.
I say this because
the lilacs are in bloom, and the scent of lilacs is so vivid now,
I always associate it with the height of spring.
Does anyone have experience of scents or smells bringing back memories?

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16 May 25 - 07:06 AM (#4222612)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: MaJoC the Filk

Oh dear, Keb: you saying ---

> the lilacs are in bloom

--- catapulted me straight into the opening pages of Night Watch (page 10 in my hardback copy).

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12 Jun 25 - 04:45 PM (#4224063)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: Mo the caller

Actually happen at the Battle of Nantwich (Holly, not Lilac though)
Celebrated in Jan every year at Holly Holy Day, with a Sealed Knot re-enactment.

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12 Jun 25 - 04:59 PM (#4224068)
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
From: Donuel

There is a Billy Connolly movie about a nursing home for classical musicians in which musical memory is demonstrated to be the most indelible part of life.

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