Miracle: 101-year-old woman with dementia remains talented pianist, playing 400 songs by ear

Monday, July 18, 2016 by: Wes Maxwell
Tags: Dementia, Alzheimer''s disease, playing music

---

(NaturalNews) Alzheimer's disease is one of the most debilitating, cruelest diseases on the planet. The sixth leading cause of death in the world, Alzheimer's is most often the culprit behind the development of symptoms associated with dementia, such as memory loss, confusion, and the inability to recognize people and places once known by heart.

Affecting nearly 35 million people per year, Alzheimer's normally costs families caring for a loved one with late-stage dementia roughly $300,000.

While Alzheimer's is, for the most part, an atrociously awful degenerative process, there are ways to prevent and reverse symptoms associated with Alzheimer's and dementia. Events like the Alzheimer's and Dementia Summit being held from July 25 – August 1 are great examples of communally informative ways to gain a greater insight on how to find natural ways to slow down and even halt the onset of Alzheimer's.

Hurry and sign up for the FREE online Alzheimer's and Dementia Summit from July 25 – August 1

Featured speaker, Christopher Shade, PhD, will be offering insightful advice on the relation between heavy metal toxicity and the development of Alzheimer's. "I was just shocked what the overlap is between mercury neurotoxicity and Alzheimer's," Shade wrote in a recently published article.

Events like Shade's "Brain Defense – What to do About Heavy Metal Toxicity" can help shed a slight shade of light on Alzheimer's and all of the suffering that goes along with it.

While most people will only be able to find hope in events like the Alzheimer's and Dementia Summit, there are a few cases that have found ways to be blissfully hopeful all on their own.

Music finds way to shine through 101 year-old woman with dementia

Take for example, ME, a 101 year-old woman diagnosed with Alzheimer's when she was in her eighties, who has somehow managed to retain the ability to play the piano just as eloquently as she could when she was in her twenties.

Preferring to go by ME for the preservation of her privacy, the 101 year-old miracle woman is rarely aware of her surroundings, often confused, and cannot recognize anyone she has met in the last few decades.

When she hops on the piano though, a different story unfolds. Performing regularly at an assortment of California assisted living facilities, ME can play over 400 songs by ear from a variety of genres, including ragtime, show tunes, pop, and gospel.

"Her sense of memory and the richness of her harmonic arrangements is really very impressive," wrote Eleanor Selfridge-Field, a music and symbols researcher at Stanford University.

Born in Tennessee in 1914, ME first learned to play the piano and violin as a child. As she honed in her craft, ME went on to earn two degrees in music education and served a brief stint as a violinist in a woman's orchestra.

Since experiencing a stroke and being diagnosed with Alzheimer's and dementia, ME now claims to not know how to read music, and that "[S]he just finds the starting note and her fingers do the rest."

It's not unheard of for Alzheimer's patients to be able to retain their musical abilities after diagnosis. According to New Scientist, "[E]vidence suggests that music is more diffusely located in the brain than language networks," perhaps a possible reason for its ability to sustain itself in the memory of dementia patients.

Heart-warming stories like ME's provide hope for research dedicated to finding cures for the debilitating effects of Alzheimer's disease. To learn more on how to prevent and reverse Alzheimer's and dementia, sign up for the FREE online Alzheimer's and Dementia Summit taking place from July 25 – August 1.

Sources:

NewScientist.com

HealthLine.com

News-Medical.net

NaturalNews.com