What is it about?
Have you already heard someone saying "I'm too old to learn a musical instrument" ? Science is helping to debunk the myth that there is a right age to start making music. Music is inherent to the our life experience, being engaged to music is a way to connect to our core. In this article we show new evidence for the benefits of making music in older age. We explore the effect of a music instrument training program on participants music performance skills and cognitive health in Japan.
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Why is it important?
It is well-known that the world population is ageing. Together with this trend, the number of people suffering from dementia is growing. Cognitive decline can be devastating for individuals lives and their families. However,our society is still not ready to combat this phenomenon. One step towards a better future is to understand how cognitive health can be maintained through noninvasive and affordable interventions. Science is giving steps towards to this goal, using music as a paradigm. Music is deeply wired in the human brain and it involves virtually every dimension of it (emotional, cognitive, sensory, or motor). Diving into the Musical Brain promises to reveal much about ourselves, and give valuable information to new healthy ageing policies.
Perspectives
The opportunity to work with people in the field is the biggest reward of this science project. There we could go beyond the data and get in touch with the real people and their life stories. I think we earn a lot not just research-wise but also for our own personal life. At the same time, we are twice motivated to make a change. To give a step forward to understand the human mind, and also to make positive social change in our communities.
Marcelo Savassi Kakihara
Kyoto Daigaku
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The association between music performance skills and cognitive improvement in a musical instrument training program for older adults, Psychology of Music, May 2024, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/03057356241248086.
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