Two researchers at the University of Newcastle in Australia have conducted a study that suggests music may have an important role to play in helping people with acquired brain injury regain some of their memories.
Amee Baird and Severine Samson asked five participants to record their feelings on songs that had been number one singles over the years, dating back to from when they were five years old to the present day. They were asked to report on their familiarity with the song and whether or not they liked it along with any memories it evoked.
While the sample size was very small, the results were encouraging, as it found that ‘music-evoked autobiographical memories’ were similar in patients with a brain injury to those in the control group without memory problems. Only one participant recorded no music-evoked autobiographical memories.
Writing in the journal Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, the authors said: “The findings suggest that music is an effective stimulus for eliciting autobiographic memories and may be beneficial in the rehabilitation of autobiographical amnesia”.
Read the source article here
http://www.bps.org.uk/news/music-helps-brain-injured-patients-memory
Read more on music and brain injury here
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