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Pediatricians Should Ask
About Guns in the Home
According to NPR, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics says pediatricians should ask whether there is a gun in the home just as they would ask whether family members use seat belts or bike helmets.
Study Finds People
With Bipolar Disorder Die Younger
The Huffington Post reports that Stanford University researchers have found an association between having bipolar disorder and dying an average of nine years earlier than the rest of the general population for women and 8 1/2 years earlier for men.
ICU-Induced PTSD Largely Unidentified, Untreated
According to The New York Times, studies show that up to 35% of patients treated in ICUs may have PTSD symptoms for as long as two years after the experience, but most cases are unidentified and untreated.
Victims Want Military Command Removed From Punishment Process
USA Today reports that military assault victims say the problem can't be fixed until the matter is removed from the chain of command. |
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Music lovers understand the deep emotional attachment to sounds that remind them of potent memories and emotions. When we attend a concert by a favorite artist, we listen courteously to the new tunes, but we go wild when artists launch into their “hits” or strum the first few bars of personal favorites.
Performers inspired by particularly moving tunes record covers that become perennial favorites beloved by millions. Multiple artists, from Jeff Buckley to k.d. lang, Susan Boyle, Rufus Wainwright, and Willie Nelson, have recorded the Leonard Cohen classic “Hallelujah.” Despite the wide range of styles represented among those performers, it is the powerful music that moves us.
While we may assume from these experiences that music also has physical and social benefits, this assumption is largely anecdotal, and our evidence-based culture demands more scientific proof of music’s benefits to our health and well-being.
This month’s E-News Exclusive describes a new project that will research how older adults’ health can benefit from of choral singing. It will assess the impact on participants’ cognition, mobility, and overall well-being during their choral year. The researchers also will examine whether singing in a community choir is a cost-effective way to promote health among culturally diverse older adults. For centuries, we have quoted poet William Congreve’s assertion that “music hath charms to soothe a savage breast,” but in 2013, science must now prove it.
For more information on the science behind music’s effects on elder memory and cognition, read the "Music and Memory” feature from our January/February issue.
We welcome your comments at SWTeditor@gvpub.com. Visit our website at www.SocialWorkToday.com, join our Facebook page, and follow us on Twitter.
— Marianne Mallon, editor |
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Testing the Power of Music to Improve Older Adult Health
Music—as poets have noted—has the power to wash away the dust of everyday life, and medical experts believe it also may imbue physical and social benefits.
Now a new University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) research project is exploring whether singing in a community choir can provide tangible health advantages to older adults.
Over the next four years, a dozen choirs will be created at older adult centers around San Francisco. The first group already has launched at the Mission Neighborhood Centers, and recruitment of choir members is under way in the Bayview and Western Addition neighborhoods.
To join Community of Voices, choir members must be aged 60 or older—no prior choral experience is needed. Altogether, approximately 400 older adults will take part in weekly, 90-minute singing sessions over the course of a year.
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