'Little Nothings of the Everyday' which cut across the silence of dementia

A rush of articles from the south of France about the importance of music and arts intervetions in care homes, particularly for those residents with dementia.

In Montreal (Aude), a whole programme of arts, music and film has been implemented to bring care home residents in touch with their own memories and with the broader community. A series of music workshops have been run over a term by music therapist Jean-Luc Dragotto. Designed to stimulate communication, good mental health and to allow residents with dementia to reclaim a sense of identity and be valorised, the intervention has proved such a success that they will be followed by an multi-media artist and film showings about life in the Pyrennees.


Nearby, Perkusaintex is a programme of percussion workshops in St.Exupery run by musician Sylvie Blondel. Through the use of rhythm, Mme Blondel encourages residents, many of whom have lost much of their verbal communication, to find an alternative route for expression. This week, the group performed for the first time in public to an invited audience of relatives and friends in the care home. The concert included a specially-written piece "Il en faut peu pour être heureux" [This is what you need to be happy]

As Mme Blondel says, what is needed to facilitate this is actually very little - ces petits riens qui font le quotidien (these little nothings which make up the everyday) but which have such transformative effects for people with dementia. While in the UK we continue to debate whether or not we should be investing in such activity, the French at least understand the economic and social value of such interventions, which are not costly but do require creativity in care planning, budgeting on local and national levels and associated bureaucracy...