Music provides breakthrough in dementia care

University experts are being brought in to see how a ground-breaking musical collaboration can be adapted to enrich the care of people with dementia.

We are enlisting the help of leading academics from Bangor University to work with them and the world-famous Hallé orchestra.

Pendine Park is preparing to open a new centre of excellence for people with dementia at its main site in Wrexham.

Proprietor Mario Kreft, recently awarded an MBE for his services to social care, believes that music and the arts have a vital role to play.

The award-winning collaboration with the Hallé was facilitated by Arts and Business Cymru, whose aim to bring the worlds of arts and business together.

Following a pilot project last year, a series of eight multi-media workshops with Hallé is underway at Pendine Park.

They are being conducted by Hallé musicians, including the new Musician in Residence at Pendine Park, Janet Simpson, who plays the piano and celeste, and cellist David Petri.

The first of their courses culminated in an emotionally-charged performance featuring music, poetry, paintings and photography.

Pendine Park is working with dementia experts from the Dementia Services Development Centre at Bangor University.

Their Training Officer Joan Woods attended to evaluate the culmination performance and was impressed with what she saw and heard.

Mrs Woods said: "One of the aspects we were looking at today was about the person's psychological wellbeing, and involvement.

"One of the reasons for doing that was also to look at the future projects that Mario's got planned so that we've got some sort of baseline to work to.

Mr Kreft said: "It's just fantastic that world class musicians from the Hallé have come to support our projects to enrich people's lives with disabilities through the medium of music and art."

"We're particularly interested as we move forward with the project to develop some dementia specific work.

"People with dementia seem to retain their musical memory so it is a perfect medium to reach those who have conditions like Alzheimer's.

"We see this as a hugely significant project as we prepare to develop our dementia care services which will be based at our new centre of excellence, Bodlondeb (Place of Contentment)."