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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Exploration of verbal and non-verbal semantic knowledge and autobiographical memories starting from popular songs in Alzheimer's disease | | Author(s) | S Basaglia-Pappas, M Laterza, C Borg |
| Journal title | International Psychogeriatrics, vol 25, no 5, May 2013 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press, May 2013 |
| Pages | pp 785-795 |
| Source | journals.cambridge.org/ipg |
| Keywords | Dementia ; Memory disorders ; Memory and Reminiscence ; Music ; Vocal music ; Therapy ; Evaluation. |
| Annotation | In mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) a deficit in episodic memory, particularly autobiographical memory, is clearly established. Several recent studies have also shown impaired semantic memory from the onset of the disease. Musical memory capacities may be especially preserved and listening to music might encourage autobiographical recall. The aim of this study was to explore recall of popular songs in AD. The study tested twelve patients with mild AD and twelve control subjects. A tool was then made up of old French popular songs: POP 10. This tool was a questionnaire composed of several subtests: melodic free recall, chorus free recall, melodic recognition, chorus recognition, semantic knowledge, autobiographical recall about the song and autobiographical recall about the interpreter. The study used non-parametric tests, the Mann-Whitney test (M-W), the Friedman test and the a posteriori Wilcoxon test. Results of AD patients were rather similar to those of control participants for melodic memory. Concerning chorus memory (except recognition), semantic knowledge and autobiographical recall about the interpreter, results of AD patients were significantly weaker than those of control participants. The most important result concerned autobiographical recall about the song: no impairment-related differences were found between the two groups. These findings demonstrate that popular songs can be excellent stimuli for reminiscence, such as the ability to produce an autobiographical memory related to a song. Thus it can be confirmed that musical semantic knowledge associated with a song may be relatively preserved in the early stages of AD. This leads to new possibilities for cognitive stimulation. (JL) |
| Accession Number | CPA-130419222 A |
| Classmark | EA: EH: DB: HH: HH6: LO: 4C |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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