I don’t want to have dementia.
I really, really, really don’t want to have dementia. Almost any other way of dying would suit me. Just, please, not that.
And now it looks like I’ll learn to play a musical instrument, too, though whether that ends up being the piano, saxophone, flute, or Cross-Granger Kangaroo-Pouch Tone-Tool (yes, that’s a thing) is another matter.
There is growing evidence that learning an instrument and continuing to play it makes the brain stronger, faster and healthier, and that it can dramatically reduce the risk of developing dementia.
A new study of 1,100 older adults, with an average age of 68, “demonstrates that playing a musical instrument is associated with better working memory and executive functions,” according to researchers from the universities of Exeter, Brunel and London. “We also found positive associations between singing and executive functions, and between overall musical ability and working memory,” they added.
The results were better among people who currently played an instrument than among those who had learned to play one as children but couldn’t keep up, the researchers found. Those who continued to play typically did so at least two to three hours a week.
“A comparison between participants who currently play a musical instrument and those who previously played one showed significantly better performance on two of three measures of working memory… and on the working memory composite… in people who currently they engage in music,” the researchers said.
The research appears in the latest issue of the Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.
And this study is not anomalous: there is research that dates back several decades. Other studies have found that, for example, adults who played a musical instrument at some point in their lives typically performed better on cognitive tests than those who didn’t, with better “global cognition, work, executive functions, language and visuospatial”. ability.” Musicians had better average long-term, short-term, and working memory than nonmusicians.
According to research published in the Journal of Neuroscience and the journal Human Brain Mapping, the brains of professional musicians appear different even when subjected to an MRI. Active musicians may actually have “younger” brains. An overview of the research shows.
Seneca Block, a music therapist and adjunct professor of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University, says brain scans also look different depending on the type of instrument a person plays. “You can see the difference between a pianist and a string player,” he says.
Not everyone is convinced. Scientists point out that many of these studies simply show correlation, not causation. Even if musicians score better, on average, than nonmusicians on various tests, that doesn’t prove that playing a musical instrument improves your brain, these skeptics say. It could simply mean that people with better brains end up playing musical instruments.
It’s a reasonable point.
But here’s why music theory wins.
First, not all studies are correlational. In this one, for example, people aged 62 to 72 received one hour of piano lessons per week for six months. They were also asked to exercise for half an hour every day. At the end of the period, MRIs showed real physical differences in their brains compared to those of people in the control group. A similar study, in which a group of older people received six months of piano training, found that those who learned to play the piano showed increased gray matter in five different areas of the brain. Another study found that just four months of training – this time on a keyboard harmonica – had an effect on the brains of people in their 60s, 70s and 80s who had never played an instrument before. One study found effects even after just two weeks of music lessons.
Then there was a longitudinal study that followed more than 350 Scots from childhood into their eighties. Not only did he distinguish between those who had learned an instrument and those who had not, but he was also able to compare the cognitive tests the participants took at age 11 and at age 70. Bottom line: musical training made a difference. “There was a small, statistically significant positive association between experience playing a musical instrument and change in general cognitive ability between ages 11 and 70,” the researchers found. And the more education a person has, the better his cognitive performance.
Probably the most notable study was one involving pairs of twins aged 65 and older in Sweden. The researchers looked at 157 cases in which one twin had cognitive impairment or dementia and the other did not. About a quarter of the pairs were identical and the remainder were fraternal.
Then they looked at which participants had learned the piano, or the flute, or the double bass, or the guitar, or the trombone, or the didgeridoo (well, maybe).
Bottom line? The twin who learned an instrument was less likely – much less likely – to have cognitive impairment or dementia. “Compared to their non-musician co-twin,” the researchers found, “musicians who played an instrument in adulthood were 64% less likely to develop dementia or cognitive impairment.”
No, really.
A purist might argue that this conclusion is also questionable. How do we know that the twin who started studying music didn’t have a much healthier brain? Well, we can’t know for sure, but remember that those twins share 50% or 100% of their DNA. Another twin study also confirmed what we might have intuitively guessed: There are many factors that determine whether or not we end up playing an instrument, and most of them are random.
I decided to apply the philosophical principle known as Pascal’s Wager, named after the 17th-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal, who famously decided that it would be logical for him to believe in God. Belief in God, he reasoned, exposed him to very high risks. less after death than atheism. How much would each option cost him, he wondered? And what were the downside risks?
It wouldn’t make much sense to me to put off learning a new tool until there is more definitive evidence that it can help prevent dementia. When this test comes, if it ever comes, it may be too late for me. And what’s the worst that can happen? I will waste time learning to play music, time that others will spend constructively watching high-quality TV shows like “Stamp-Collecting Wars” and “The Real Housewives of Poughkeepsie.”
Bring the music.