Living with dementia and memory problems

And music is obviously part, important to you too, music and playing the; what is it called, banjolele?

Lawrence: It’s erm, yes, have to be acc, yeah, it’s brilliant.

Daughter: Yeah, and you’ve got your guitar, haven’t you, dad, you’ve got your guitar as well.

Lawrence: Guitar.

Daughter: You love, you love your music.

How long have you been playing the guitar then, all your life?

Lawrence: Do you want a listen?

Sorry, I’ll get it. 

Lawrence: Thank you very much.

There you go.

Lawrence: Thank you very much now [Iaughs] thank you very much now.

Daughter: You’re got your American accent now when you play music.

Lawrence: [Playing guitar] I used, used to try and do it on a classical thing [playing guitar]. I’ll just give you a couple of my [playing guitar and singing].

Trish: Well, I mean Howard a couple of weeks ago played the clarinet and piano middle part of Mozart’s concerto for his mum, so he can pick up the most extraordinarily complicated score, he doesn’t rehearse and he just plays it, and it brings tears to your eyes, and it’s, it’s perfect. I mean that’s what I find.

Howard: I have to practise occasionally, I can’t just do it straight like that.

Trish: Well, you very rarely practise.

Howard: But I’m willing to do that.

Yeah, that’s a gift isn’t it? I can’t, well I cannot imagine.

Trish: What, what I find extraordinary is that, you know, we’re having to write lists for Howard to go to Tesco and stuff like that and yet he can pick up a complex score and play it perfectly without even thinking.

Howard: Yeah.

Trish: It is, it is, the brain is a.

Howard: It certainly is.

Trish: Interesting.

Howard: Yeah, I tried it in Waitrose and it didn’t work [laughs] I got a couple of pence.

Have you changed some of the things that you used to do, hobbies or sports or?

Richard: My hobbies have gone.

What sort of hobbies would you have done?

Richard: Music.

Playing music?

Richard: Playing music.

What did you play?

Richard: Guitar. I mean I still plink and plonk about but, you know, it’s, it’s getting harder and harder.

So, you, you just feel like you, you’re not playing it to the standard you used to?

Richard: I haven’t touched the guitar for about [laughs] a few months now.

Viv: No, you, you can play, but certain chords you forget, and you did play yesterday, so.

Richard: Oh right.

Viv: I have to really pressurise you to play [laughter] because when you’re playing the guitar and it’s sort of, your eyes, you know, light up and you stick to a rhythm which you hear off the music on YouTube and it helps you.

Richard: Mm.

And when did, were, were you, did you learn to play guitar at, at school or was that just something you did?

Richard: It started at school, yeah, yeah, at the, the same school I’m talking about [name of school], horrible thing [laughs] but, you know, the, the people who wanted to play music, they got their guitars out, they got the, you know, there was a drummer, there was a, you know, we could have had a, you know, a band, but it didn’t happen.

Mm, no, just do it for fun.

Richard: Yeah.

Did you take exams in music?

Richard: Yeah, yeah, that was easy [laughs] dots all over the place, you know, that was dead easy.

So, you like your music then do you?

Pat: Yeah, I do.

Barrie: Mm.

Pat: I like music. Barrie’s pretty good at it as well.

Barrie: Well, I play guitar a bit [laughs].

Pat: Yeah, you do lots of things. So yeah, it’s good.

That’s lovely. So, do you sing at home then if you’ve got a guitar player; do you like to sing together?

Barrie: Yeah, but not with my guitar [laughs].

Pat: No.

Barrie: We’ve got a karaoke machine in there.

Oh fab.

Pat: Fab.

Barrie: Which, which we do here, but also [daughter], her daughter.

Pat: Yeah.

Barrie: They’ve got a, a, a big set with a, with a lot of songs and it’s one of the things we do when we go and visit them.

Pat: I was going to say when we go over to my daughter’s, you know.

Barrie: Yeah, we get it out, don’t we?

Pat: And we have a really good, we have a really good stomp then [laughs] you know, it’s good, yeah. We all like music though.

Barrie: Yeah, and I must admit.

That’s fun.

Pat: And my dad is a lovely singer too, mm.

Barrie: We, we heard about music and singing being beneficial for people with memory loss; without a doubt it works.

Pat: Yeah.

Barrie: Because even, was it yesterday we were at [daughter]?

Pat: Yeah, yeah.

Barrie: You, you, you were singing a song with her.

Pat: Yeah.

Barrie: But I don’t know, it was from the ‘50s or something, and you knew the words for it.

Pat: Yes, I did, yeah.

Barrie: You, you know.

Pat: It’s something my dad had taught me and he was, had been singing it and I started humming it and so I could remember the words when I was over at [daughter] [laughs] yeah, so I.

Barrie: You know, it just comes out like this, yeah.

Pat: Yeah.

It’s an amazing thing, isn’t it?

Barrie: Oh.

How music and singing works.

Pat: I don’t know how it works either.

No.

Barrie: You, you would think if, if it triggers, you know, your brain neurons to work, why doesn’t it work all the time, you know? [laughs] I really don’t know, but, but it does work, without a doubt.

So, did you go to the wedding?

Yes, big, big, big wedding; he married up at [parish] Church and then we drove right back to this far place, past [City] over beautiful place, his wedding reception.

Fantastic.

Yeah, yes.

That’s lovely.

And I sang for him too.

Oh, did you?

Yeah, I sung for him [laughs].

Oh fantastic.

Yeah, I sang for him.

Eric: Yes, but I’m just – I just lose, one thing I can’t do is stand up, up, stand for a long time, I’ve tended to faint [laughs].

Oh gosh.

Ros: Two or three times.

Eric: I’ve had it twice.

Ros: Orthostatic –

Eric: I tend to, I mean it’s only twice but.

Ros: Hypotension.

Ah.

Eric: I’ll be careful now not to stand for too long anywhere.

Oh, I see, yeah.

Eric: So, we sing in a choir, normally when you’re doing choir practice you stand but I do it sitting just to save having to stand for twenty minutes or whatever it is.

Oh OK. And where?

Eric: It sounds silly, doesn’t it, but?

Well, no, it sounds like you’re making arrangements to sort of make things work for you, rather than not go to choir practice you…

Eric: Yes, I mean, yes, if I didn’t go to choir practice it wouldn’t be a problem, yes [laughter].

But you enjoy your choir?

Eric: Yes, reasonably [laughs] but. I mean it’s not the best choir in the world [laughter].

Is it a, a mix, a mixed choir or a male choir?

Eric: It’s a mixed choir. Music really is my main hobby.

Joan: Oh yeah, I sing in a choir.

Sister: You sing in a choir.

Do you go to the choir?

Joan: Yeah.

Where’s that?

Joan: Because I go to church.

The church choir?

Joan: The church choir, yeah, mm hmm, every week.

And how long have you been doing that?

Joan: Oh, I’ve always gone down there, all the way, all the way [laughs].

Carl: 70, 70-odd years.

Joan: I’ve always gone to church, yeah, I’ve, I’ve always gone to church. From Cradle Roll; that’s my first church, Cradle Roll, up till now. I go to church every week.

Ray: I don’t have anything which is a hobby, I don’t think. No, I haven’t, I haven’t got a hobby. I don’t know about if I’m just in the house, I don’t know, I don’t know what I do really.

I see there’s lots of CDs over there; do you like listening to music?

Ray: Oh well I have been, I have been doing that, yes, yeah [laughs].

Barbara: And a lot of post-it notes [laughter] to remind you what to do isn’t there?

Ray: Mm?

Barbara: There’s a lot of post-it notes to remind you what to do.

Ray: That’s right, I get. Because I, I’m having to learn things that I didn’t know before.

So there’s like kind of new strategies you’re using putting post-it notes around?

Barbara: Well yes, and that, that’s certainly; so you can see them all over there [laughs] because you just couldn’t remember how to do things, could you, and I didn’t know how to do them but I had to find out, and so the post-it notes are, are reminders for that.

So, are they kind of like instructions on how to use the CD player and everything?

Barbara: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh. And do you find those help you?

Ray: Oh yeah, I use it, yeah, yeah, how to get, how to get a nice loud [laughter] thing sometimes.

Barbara: I didn’t put that on [laughter].

What kind of music do you like listening to?

Ray: All those things there more or less [laughter].

Barbara: What are they?

Ray: They’re more or less the, the same, you know. I mean some of them, you know, you’re looking at the, all those things, I mean some of them are mostly male, you know, and the other ones are female, so.

Barbara: [Laughs] You’ve got lots of different artists.

Ray: Oh yeah.

Barbara: But you like a lot of, a lot of country music don’t you?

Ray: Dixie; what’s, what’s the, what’s the, what’s the?

Barbara: Dixie Chicks you like.

Ray:  Dixie Chicks, I like them; I’ve got two of theirs.

Barbara: Celine Dion.

Ray: What?

Barbara: Celine Dion.

Ray: Oh yes, there’s another one who’s very good, yeah.

Barbara: [Laughs] Shania Twain.

Ray: Yes, Sha.

Barbara: I know these better than you do. [talking together]

Ray: Barbara’s been looking, very well. [Barbara laughs] So yeah, but I’ve had these quite a long time in actual fact, you know.

Barbara: You’re actually probably using it more.

Ray: Yeah.

Barbara: I mean, because really before that you, you, you used to play a lot of golf; we wouldn’t be in that much, to be honest, we’d be out doing things. Now obviously things have changed; well, we do still go out doing things. What things do you like doing down at the church particularly?

Ray: Oh yeah, yeah. Mind you, here I do things when these are on.

Barbara: Yeah, you dance.

Ray: I dance on my own. [Barbara laughs] If you, if you wanted to come and [laughter] dance with me it was really nice, all over [laughs].

Wow.

Ray: But it just helps me as well, because I think it’s fun.