Dementia therapy method and instrument

Abstract

A dementia therapy method that involves PWD in playing music, particularly as part of an ensemble 'performing in concert', which provides a rewarding and encouraging result of utilizing abilities that they may not even know they had to produce pleasing music. This method utilizes musical instruments adapted for playing by PWD who can utilize procedural rather than declarative memory in playing. By connecting a plurality of the instruments to a central director's console the combined musical sound can be coordinated to make it pleasing. Then several PWD are trained to play components of songs together as an group. An example of our specially adapted musical instruments is an easily played percussion instrument having an organized layout of one or more tone bars that, when struck (or touched) by a player generate a musical tone. The instrument may be further adapted to ease its use by movement restricted players.