AMSTERDAM (AP) — Megan Worthy still recalls singing in a choir in the Australian capital, Canberra, as she was growing up.
Now, as a rare form of early-onset dementia chips away at her vision and other brain functions, the 58-year-old is transported back to her musical youth as she and her daughter, Bronte, sing together with other people with neurological conditions in an Amsterdam concert hall, the Concertgebouw.
“It’s pretty brutal,” Worthy said of her rare neurological condition. “I’m starting to lose everything, you know, and this is really rewarding and seeing all these people, yeah, it did make me have a lot of memories.”
She was taking part in a so-called “singing circle” run by opera singer Maartje de Lint at the landmark concert venue for seniors with what she calls “vulnerable brains,” many of whom have a form of dementia or Parkinson's disease.
Millions of people have some form of dementia, a progressive loss of memory, reasoning, language skills and other cognitive functions. People can experience changes in personality, emotional control, even visual perception. Alzheimer’s is the most widely recognized type, but there are many others, with their own symptoms and underlying biology. Small strokes, for example, can impair blood flow to the brain and trigger what’s called vascular dementia.
The singers in Amsterdam, who each pay 20 euros ($23.50) to attend, are arranged with their carers in a circle of chairs under a ceiling hung with 14 crystal chandeliers in the venue's ornate Mirror Hall.
“We always say, music is like vitamins,” said Selien Kneppers, 78, who once managed a Dutch boogie woogie and blues band and now regularly attends the singing circle.
Roving around the middle, often dropping to one knee and reaching out her hands to connect with a singer, is De Lint. She and other singers in her organization crisscross the Netherlands and Europe, leading singing workshops.
Singing, De Lint says, is a way of keeping the brain active and bringing family members and their loved ones closer together.
“So we give people perspective," she says before one of her singing sessions in Amsterdam. "It’s like actually a training for the brain, for the body, to get more resilient and understand the perspective that you still have.”
Source: WPLG
