Singing circle in Amsterdam offers benefits to dementia patients

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 the elderly 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 recognised 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.People, many of them seniors with a form of dementia, take part in the ‘singing circle’ run by opera singer Maartje de Lint at the Concertgebouw concert hall in Amsterdam. Photo: APThe singers in Amsterdam, who each pay €20 (US$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.