👏Music - Scientifically Proven "Medicine!"👏

August 31, 2019

Welcoming Back... or is that "encore!"

Nicholas Burns (piano) and Louisa Stonehill (violin) (standing) of Ashuelot Concerts demonstrate chamber music to elementary school students. With them are the other two members of the Samara Piano Quartet , Marcia Cassidy (viola) and Paul Cohen (cello) .

Music - Scientifically Proven "Medicine"

Read the Article

" Ashuelot Concerts was created to enrich our community by making world-class, live music available to all. Music heals; it challenges; it stretches our brains and it touches even those who are least expecting it. It brings people together in a unifying and uplifting shared experience.

Ashuelot Concerts believes classical music can make a real difference to people's lives. We are setting out to remove the barriers that prevent people engaging with this incredible music: In 2018, in the US, classical music made up only 1% of all the music bought, downloaded or streamed. It is up to the concert-artists and music-lovers alike to work together to change this situation. Classical music has so much to offer future generations and cannot be allowed to be marginalized further."

Wonderful for the young, but what about music's possible effect in preventing cognitive decline and dementia later in life?

Abstract

Increasing evidence supports that playing a musical instrument may benefit cognitive development and health at young ages. Whether playing an instrument provides protection against dementia has not been established. In a population-based cotwin control study, we examined the association between playing a musical instrument and whether or not the twins developed dementia or cognitive impairment. Participation in playing an instrument was taken from informant-based reports of twins’ leisure activities. Dementia diagnoses were based on a complete clinical workup using standard diagnostic criteria. Among 157 twin pairs discordant for dementia and cognitive impairment, 27 pairs were discordant for playing an instrument. Controlling for sex, education, and physical activity, playing a musical instrument was significantly associated with less likelihood of dementia and cognitive impairment (odds ratio [OR] = 0.36 [95% confidence interval 0.13–0.99]). These findings support further consideration of music as a modifiable protective factor against dementia and cognitive impairment.