Alive Inside: A Story of Music and Memory

I am deeply moved by this documentary. It is really very fascinating to watch how the Alzheimer patients who don't even remember their names responded to music, particularly the music they loved in their early days.The scientific reasons behind this is also described properly. Aging is an inevitable phenomenon of life. It is us who should decide how we take care of aged population. In India the way is far more different than USA. Here usually old people, who are suffering from dementia are not sent to a nursing home. Home care is given and they remain in the family. But after watching this documentary I have realized the picture is quite different in America.Parting a old human from his/her familiar world is gonna worsen their disease(but there may be some obligatory factors in the family I am overlooking those).If music therapy seems to help them then it should be started on a large scale. Dan Cohen is doing a great job by helping these people(not patient) and government should help him to achieve his goal. A must watch.

I saw the trailer for the film on YouTube. As I'm just beginning a new career in aged care, I've been inspired to use music with residents - recorded music, singing to them*, and involving them in community singalongs. While my experience has been brief so far, I have seen in some residents the transformation which music gives (though nowhere near as dramatic as Henry in the clip).

*I'm not much of a singer, but that doesn't make a difference if I can find the right songs.

Inspired by the clip, I bought the DVD.

It was one of the most positive films I've seen for a long time. It brought tears to the eyes seeing some of the transformation brought about by music. It was wonderful, seeing a way that some joy can be brought back to some people.

I know that a film like that will only show the most positive stories, and I've seen first hand that many more people will not have the reactions shown.

But there has been enough of a transformation in some of the stories shown to continue to inspire me to look for opportunities to give just a little bit of joy to some people.

Thank you so much to the filmmakers and storymakers for showing the possibilities.

Music is powerful and the sounds are unpredictable. "Alive Inside" takes us inside some American nursing homes and it shows some of this hidden power and the healing effect of music on patients which suffer different levels of dementia and Alzheimer's. We see through their eyes, how they were kinda dead and, suddenly, smiles and that spark on the eyes. With music, they can live again.

The movie is about "Music & Memory", Dan Cohen's nonprofit organization. He brings iPod's and earphones for some patients, and plays their favorite music. The results on screen are fabulous. We know our music carries memories and it defines part of our personality. These patients combat memory loss, by dementia or Alzheimer's, and just by playing the musics, we can see they come up with things they thought were lost. We're exposed to some awakening and delightful moments, with an uplifting atmosphere of hope and joy passed to us, with some sensitive and heart touching scenes. There's too much feeling on it!

I believe one of the best points on the documentary is Rossato- Bennett's work on the cinematography. He followed Dan to check and film his job. What he didn't knew until the first days, is that he was going to spent a couple of years with him, and there are some astonishing pictures on the screen. His works on close ups and the pace of the doc are fantastic. But, it's all about the music, and the key point is the soundtrack, made by the collection of some patients music. We travel in time on gospel music, some blues and jazz, classical music. The soundtrack is brilliant. It couldn't be different.

Since everything isn't great, there are some important preoccupations with the future shown. The planet is getting older, and we're not prepared to it. There's no interest today on taking care of the elders. Geriatricians are fading and in some years from today, we will see an old population, without the needed assistance. People today don't even seem to care with this. Dan got huge negative feed backs when he was trying to get some donations improve and spread his organization on the country. Here, we see with our eyes, how music affects on people, how it enhances the life of the elders, but we don't even have huge research's on this field. We simply don't care with elderly people.

Music is everything. Music is identity and memories. Musics are sad and happy, it hurts, heals. It works on us in deep levels and so many ways we can't even imagine. We all have our musics and our memories, and we're the ones who should protect it. When you forget, you don't leave a memory. You leave yourself, aside on the roads of life, and it's okay. Our brain can't hold on too much information, we need to leave some things on the way, but remember: if you want it back somehow, just play your music. Musics are feelings, and to feel is to be alive.

Dementia affects around 46,8 millions of people around the world and Alzheimer Disease is the main cause of it. This devastating pathology takes away from you the most important treasure: your memories. You unlearn how to eat, how to dress, how to talk and even how to live. You become dependent. But if instead just medicines, music had an important healing power? In "Alive Inside", a Michael Bennett documentary, we saw the brilliant idea of Dan Cohen, a social worker, be successfully applied - listening music can renew dignity of those who have forgotten their own value. Released in 2014, this delightful film shows the reaction of Alzheimer's heroes and other dementias to listening to personalized music - they awake from a deep sleep and become alive again. It's joyful to see them dancing, singing and talk about it.

Finally, we follow his fight in order that the highest number of nursing homes in the United States can adopt your therapy. Touching and inspiring, this movie teach us the sense of humanity, showing that difference can and should be done.

We need music. That's the message you are going to get from this documentary. And very few are as eye opening as "Alive inside" which takes us into the world of nursing homes in the US. It's easy to forget that there are millions of people living alone with no relatives to pay them a visit. We go on with our daily lives and spend more time talking to strangers on social medias than actually doing something for real people who are there and need us. The scary thing, it's that it might very likely be the way we end up ourselves: sat on a chair in a nursing home while contemplating yet again a plain wall for hours.

What Dan (the protagonist of this documentary) sets to do is to show the power of alternative therapies for people with Dementia, or simply people who have forgotten all about their lives. And his soothing therapy couldn't be simpler: Music! That's right! nothing else. We see the residents of these nursing homes with broken spirits, unable to articulate a sentence, incapable of remember any details from the past. Surprisingly, the moment they are exposed to music, memories come back to them. A spark lightens up in their eyes, they even dance, and start talking more than they ever did. Music makes them cry, laugh, jump. As one of them says: "It makes me feel like I have a girl and I can hug her".

How can music be so powerful? some bits are explained in the documentary, so I hope you will find the time to watch it. While it might not be the best edited piece of film making around, for the sake of its content, you should definitely give it go!