Personalised meaningful music for people with dementia

Music plays such an important role in our lives. It is a powerful medium that lights up the brain like a firework display as soon as it hits the ear, stimulating many parts of the brain at once. We all have those songs in our lives that mean something to us, our ‘Desert Island Discs’ or our soundtrack to the key events of our lives. Research has found that music has many benefits for our mental health and wellbeing. We know how music can lift our mood. This is due to the release of dopamine, which can rise by as much as 9% when we play a song that we enjoy (Salimpoor et al, 2011). Music as a therapy can also help with symptoms of depression (Maratos et al, 2008) and can reduce the symptoms of anxiety (Gutiérrez and Camarena, 2015)