Dementia Awareness Week: Charity-funded music programme is helping dementia patients at Nottingham’s hospitals

We formed Wellspring Music CIC in 2015 during our Music in Healthcare apprenticeship with OPUS Music CIC. We’re now in our second year of working on dementia ward B47 at the QMC, funded by Nottingham Hospitals Charity.

Singing and playing mandolin, guitar and harmonicas, we visit the ward each week, playing at bedsides, in corridors and in the day room, for patients, staff and relatives. People are encouraged to join in by singing, dancing and playing the ward’s instruments specially curated for the project.

We get a tremendous response from the people on B47, and it’s clear that music-making is really valuable to people with dementia. Even the hardest to reach can connect and communicate through music. The positive results of the music are reduced stress, isolation and boredom, and stimulation of memories and sense of identity. One of our feedback cards read “the music was so soft and pleasing to the soul that we felt very happy and calm in spirit and forgot all our problems”.

To find out more about what Marc and James do, visit their website.

To support dementia care at Nottingham’s hospitals, please visit our donations page.