Author(s)
Kagari SHIBAZAKI, Nigel A. MARSHALL
Abstract
The objectives of the study were to better understand how the responses of people with
dementia towards a series of musical activities were understood and interpreted by their
care givers. The research explored the extent to which caregiver observations could serve
as a proxy language for those with limited memory and verbal capacity. 33 care staff
and trained volunteers based in five full time care facilities in UK and Japan carried out a
series of open observations on pre-selected residents with mid – to final-stage dementia,
during a series of informal musical experiences. Subsequently, interviews were held with
each of the participants in order to better understand what they had observed and how
they had interpreted the responses which residents had made during the event.
Our results suggested that informal musical experiences can potentially offer a range of
benefits to care staff, alongside those experienced by residents, and the act of carrying out
the observations increased the level of observational skills and the confidence which care
givers have in making assessments about the relative levels of well-being in individual
residents. The study concluded that in addition to being a pleasant interlude, or a simple
form of entertainment, musical experiences can actually become an important and
sensitive tool for assessing physical and cognitive health, along with providing a unique
context in which disability and stigma are removed.
Keywords: dementia, music, care staff, stigma, normality