Project Writes Songs about Alzheimer Patients' Lives to Try to Slow Down the Disease 

10/17/2016 - 14h33

Medical research has already shown that musical memory is one of the last forms lost due to the brain deterioration caused by Alzheimer's disease. It is still difficult to say, however, if it is possible to use this knowledge to prevent the disease from advancing.

An independent initiative wants to test this hypothesis, without the pretention or the commitment of a scientific study, by joining Alzheimer patients and their families with musicians. The proposal of the Músicas Para Sempre (Songs Forever) project is to make artists get to know some of the patients' lives and make songs about them.

The life of retired businessman Hélio Queiroz, 65, was the first to be made into a song. Three years ago, Queiroz's daughters, Camila and Mariana, began to find their father's behavior strange – at the time, Queiroz was the owner of a vocational school. "They noticed that I was not doing things correctly but I couldn't see it. So they started to look for a doctor to see me, but I didn't know about it," says Queiroz.

Queiroz does not hide the happiness he feels when he remembers the homage-song made for him. "All my friends, my family and the people who supported me are in it. I have to give a big thanks for that. Never in my life could I imagine feeling even 10% of this," says Queiroz.

Composer Lucas Mayer says that the most difficult part was selecting what would be left out of the song. With less than half of the stories about Queiroz's life, the song was already five minutes long. "Having to choose what moments of a person's life to use in a song is really strange, because I was selecting the points that I believed were the most important. For example, I couldn't manage to put Chico, Queiroz's best friend, into the lyrics."

The memory of the melody lasts the longest, even with Alzheimer's disease, says Wagner Gattaz, a psychiatry professor at USP. Gattaz also says that the autobiographical memories usually last longer.

	BBC
	The memory of the melody lasts the longest, even with Alzheimer's disease, says Wagner Gattaz, a psychiatry professor at USP

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p(tagline). Translated by THOMAS MUELLO