Not Right In The Head by Michelle Wyatt

Author:Michelle Wyatt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2016-05-01T16:00:00+00:00

With dementia and Alzheimer patients, music is widely used in therapy, often as a form of communication and expression. Over the past decade, several studies and documentaries have shown how a familiar old song can unlock a seemingly dormant memory in the brain. And that although the brain of these patients may not be able to verbalise emotions or convey them physically, it can retain their ability to move in time with a beat, even late into the disease.

One remarkable video I have seen on YouTube is of a woman named Naomi Feil, who has developed a technique proving to be rather successful in connecting with dementia patients called ‘validation therapy’. In this particular clip, Naomi is working with an elderly woman who, after being non-verbal for many years, starts to sing along with a song she remembers from her church-going days. Naomi starts by gently stroking the woman’s face, which is meant to stimulate memories of how we were touched by our mothers as babies, and then she begins to softly sing to her. The patient soon begins to tap along with the music—but nearly five minutes into the clip, that particular song obviously unlocks a very significant memory in her brain, and this previouslynon-verbal patient starts to sing along with Naomi. Not a dry eye in the house.

After I first saw that clip, I was convinced that if we could find the right song and sing it to Mum, something in her brain would recognise it—and maybe, just maybe, we could, even for a fleeting moment, bring her back from where she was. It was worth a shot, so I thought a lot about what would be the perfect song. She loved all those old crooner tunes from Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, and couldn’t go past a good old-fashioned show tune in her day. Judy Garland’s ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ was her all-time favourite, but I knew I wouldn’t get through one verse of that song without turning into a blubbering mess. It had to be something that brought her joy, but didn’t take her back to a sad or emotional place.

I had it: the Collingwood Football Club theme song! She had supported that AFL team her whole life, and on the Saturdays we didn’t all take the train to their home football ground and watch them play, Mum would be parked in the kitchen all day, cooking and listening to the game on the radio. That song was sung as the team ran onto the ground and then, god willing, after the game as part of the victory celebration. It was a perfect choice—and thankfully, you don’t need to be Julie Andrews to sound half decent singing it. If 90,000 drunk football fans can sing it in public, then surely I can pull it off in front of my mother without causing too much embarrassment.

So off we went on the habitual Sunday morning visit. I had warned my husband there was a pretty good chance he

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