What would you think if you knew a person who couldn't remember her own name, but could recall the words to a favorite song? A person who did not recognize the members of her family, but could learn the words to a new song? You might call it amazing, a miracle, even. But we see this every day in our work with people with memory deficits.
Based on years of clinical evidence, familiar music has the capacity to stimulate seemingly lost memories in individuals with memory deficits due to dementia, head trauma, or stroke. In our specialized dementia unit we have residents who respond to familiar songs even when recognition of language and visual objects is no longer possible. This suggests that music memory may utilize a different memory system in the brain -- and a pathway that may still be available within the "silent" brain of the Alzheimer patient.
