Co-singing in Families Living with Dementia1

The incidence of dementia is increasing rapidly, and a growing number of persons with dementia live in their private homes, even in stages of severe dementia. Therefore, persons with dementia and their relatives could benefit from supportive strategies to maintain communication and meaningful activities as their daily lives change due to the condition. Many people have had considerable singing experiences throughout their lives. Thus, low-threshold, flexible daily life singing activities for persons with dementia and their relatives could be based on their own singing competences and background. However, most existing research on singing and music for this target group, outside institutionalised healthcare settings, involves music therapists instructing relatives on how to apply individualised music programmes. This article suggests a supplemental approach, and the term “co-singing” is proposed to describe such a practice. Singing in the context of families affected by dementia is seen in relation to different, though overlapping theoretical perspectives: health musicking, communicative musicality, dementia and memory, and the polyvagal theory. Within this context, the concept of co-singing highlights the relational aspects of singing, also outside a professional therapeutic or institutionalised context of music and dementia. Thus, “co-singing” provides a supplement and fills a gap between “singing” in general and “caregiver singing” or “care-singing”. Co-singing in families – even when facing severe dementia – can enhance communication and interaction through an entangled process of neuropsychological co-regulation and implicit memories and skills.