What No Cake Visit Cotman House

'What No Cake' visited Cotman House this week. They are a group of 7 people, male and female, that come along and play their ukulele's and also provide poetry readings and short stories.Musical sessions are great for sensory stimulation. All the residents really enjoy the afternoon and it gives us the chance to sing along and play our instruments.Mary commented 'I like the variety of poetry and the singing, very pleasant afternoon!"This is what Age UK say about the importance of music to the elderly:The power of music, especially singing, to unlock memories and kickstart the grey matter is an increasingly key feature of dementia care. It seems to reach parts of the damaged brain in ways other forms of communication cannot.'We tend to remain contactable as musical beings on some level right up to the very end of life,' says Professor Paul Robertson, a concert violinist and academic who has made a study of music in dementia care.'We know that the auditory system of the brain is the first to fully function at 16 weeks, which means that you are musically receptive long before anything else. So it’s a case of first in, last out when it comes to a dementia-type breakdown of memory.'Many music students throughout the UK, as well as more experienced musicians, now regard care home visits as part of their learning experience. As well as being enormously beneficial to those with various forms of dementia and their carers, they can also be helpful and rewarding for the musicians themselves.