title: A nonmusician with severe Alzheimer's dementia learns a new song.
abstract: The hallmark symptom of Alzheimer's Dementia (AD) is impaired memory, but memory for familiar music can be preserved. We explored whether a non-musician with severe AD could learn a new song. A 91 year old woman (NC) with severe AD was taught an unfamiliar song. We assessed her delayed song recall (24 hours and 2 weeks), music cognition, two word recall (presented within a familiar song lyric, a famous proverb, or as a word stem completion task), and lyrics and proverb completion. NC's music cognition (pitch and rhythm perception, recognition of familiar music, completion of lyrics) was relatively preserved. She recalled 0/2 words presented in song lyrics or proverbs, but 2/2 word stems, suggesting intact implicit memory function. She could sing along to the newly learnt song on immediate and delayed recall (24 hours and 2 weeks later), and with intermittent prompting could sing it alone. This is the first detailed study of preserved ability to learn a new song in a non-musician with severe AD, and contributes to observations of relatively preserved musical abilities in people with dementia.
authors.affiliation: a Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders and Psychology Department , Macquarie University , Sydney , Australia.
authors.forename: Amee
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Baird
authors.affiliation: a Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders and Psychology Department , Macquarie University , Sydney , Australia.
authors.forename: Heidi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Umbach
authors.affiliation: a Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders and Psychology Department , Macquarie University , Sydney , Australia.
authors.forename: William Forde
authors.initials: WF
authors.lastname: Thompson
mesh_terms: D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000150:complications*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007859:Learning Disabilities / Q000209:etiology*; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D009146:Music; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D063346:Singing / Q000502:physiology*; D014825:Vocabulary
keywords: Alzheimer’s Dementia; Music; memory; singing