Singing group 'brings joy' to people with dementia

Music sessions for those with dementia "brighten up people's lives", the leader of the group running them claims.

Paul Bellamy leads the Memory Singers sessions in Solihull, Warwick and Coventry and said: "It's been proved that music activates or reactivates parts of sufferers brains."

He added that, in the sessions, they go through everything from primary school songs to Abba and "the difference from when they come in at the start of the session and when they leave at the end is just remarkable".

Michael Timms, who takes his sister Jen to the sessions in Solihull added: "Its a wonderful afternoon out that we really look forward to."

Bellamy claimed music was often the last thing people with dementia forgot, even after speech and that "human beings are musical by nature".

He said the sessions, accompanied by a professional pianist and organised by the choir and music charity Armonico Consort, start with some vocal warm-ups, but singing ability really did not matter.

The important thing, he said, was that by the end "they're laughing and talking, they're talking to whoever brought them there".

He tries to find songs that those at the gatherings remember and said singing "gives them this joy and this sense of this achievement and this sense of purpose".

His own father has Alzheimer's disease and he said he found helping others with dementia "very rewarding".

Timms said his sister was diagnosed with Alzheimer's three years ago and the family had struggled at first.

She now lives in a flat where she is supported and, while her short-term memory has suffered, he said she had "always loved music" and remembered all the songs sung at the sessions.

He said he went with Jen and his wife and that Bellamy and his team "made us all so welcome" and "really brings it out of us".

"It brings us closer together. We really look forward to it and it makes us all happier," he said.

Follow BBC Birmingham on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.