Older Adults with Experience with Musical Instruments Have Better Brain Health
Playing musical instruments isn’t only connected to higher intelligence, but also to better brain health later in life.
It is a reoccurring question among researchers and regular people as to how can we keep our intelligence and our brain functioning well into our senior years.
The study that we will talk about today has looked at one factor in particular, it being if we choose to play musical instruments or sing in choirs.
This study has run for 10 years, employing participants over the age of 40 and asking them how much they have played musical instruments or sung in choirs. Their cognitive abilities are then tested and the results from this test and earlier questions about their exposure to music were compared against each other.
This comparison showed that playing musical instruments (especially the piano) helped stay sharp later in life, an example of that is being able to solve complex tasks and having a better memory overall. When looking at singing in a choir, the results showed that it also correlates with having better brain health in general. However, it is also seen in other research that being part of a group is a social factor that helps with brain health (Duffner et al. 2023).
When the research team reviewed the results, they themselves came to the conclusion that “being musical could be a way of harnessing the brain’s agility and resilience, known as cognitive reserve.”
They also state that even though this topic needs more research to make sure there aren’t any other factors playing a big role in this, they implicate that “promoting musical education would be a valuable part of public health initiatives to promote a protective lifestyle for brain health, as would encouraging older adults to return to music in later life.” As was said by Anne Corbett, a Professor of Dementia Research at the University of Exeter.
This study is supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration South West Peninsula (PenARC) and NIHR Exeter Biomedical Research Centre.
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