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Charity Pilot for People With Dementia

Monday May 5 2014

THE journalist, writer and broadcaster Sally Magnusson has launched a pioneering project and donation drive which aims to support people with dementia and their families.

The BBC's Songs of Praise presenter is the founder of the charity Playlist for Life, which uses meaningful music as part of the care for those living with dementia, either at home or in a residential care home.

Launching a pilot project in Dunfermline last week, which she hopes will be rolled out as a national model, Sally explained how she had founded the charity after her own poignant experience of her late mother's dementia, in the hope it would bring the beneficial power of personally meaningful music to people living with dementia by encouraging families and care-givers to create a playlist of uniquely meaningful music on an iPod or similar device. Sally's mother was Mamie Magnusson, author of the centenary account of the Church of Scotland Guild's history, Out of Silence.

Working in Partnership with the charity, the Rotary Club of Dunfermline is now preparing to collect disused iPods as part of a training pilot, which has been part-funded by a £10,000 grant from the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust.

The Dunfermline pilot, run by Playlist for Life trustee and trainer Andy Lowndes, will work with staff from care homes, voluntary groups working with people with dementia in the community and family carers, who will be provided with specialist training and IT equipment to allow them to construct and load personal playlists, enabling people with dementia to have access to their playlist whenever needed.

Dunfermline has been selected for this pilot as the size of the community provides a balanced cross-section of those affected by dementia, both within family homes and residential care. Of those diagnosed with dementia in Fife, approximately 63.5% live in their own home in the community, while the remaining 36.5% live in long-term care.

Rotary club president Alan Mutter, said: “Many local families have been touched by dementia, which Sally describes as one of the greatest social, medical, economic and moral challenges of our times."

The Carnegie Dunfermline Trust’s immediate past chairman, Robin Watson added: “The Trustees are very pleased to support Playlist for Life with this unique pilot in Dunfermline, as we are aware that there are few particularly effective drugs to treat dementia and that the best care available is essentially human intervention.

“Sharing music that has personal meaning for an individual can help family members and others looking after someone at home or in residential care, recover the closeness of a relationship. We believe that supporting this pilot will go some way towards helping the growing numbers of families in Dunfermline affected by this cruel disease.”

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