Research Members' Current Work
Pilot Randomised Evaluation of Singing in Dementia (PRESIDE)
Most people with dementia are likely to spend years of their lives with a relative or close friend as their principal carer. We aim to study how singing affects these caring partnerships and the lives of the people involved. The study has been funded by the Alzheimer’s Society (grant number 400).
Why research singing?
There is a shortage of effective therapeutic interventions to support people with dementia and their family carers in the community. Singing is popular, accessible to most people and relatively inexpensive to deliver at scale. The logic of its effect is that the social, emotional and physiological stimulation of regular group singing helps to maintain mental functioning and community integration for the person with dementia. An enjoyable shared experience may strengthen the caring relationship.
Who is the study for?
People who have been diagnosed with dementia of any type within the past 12 months and who are willing to join a singing group set up for the study will be eligible to join it, providing they are not regular singers and have a carer or supporter who can attend with them. It is important that they speak English fluently.
We hope that 80 pairs will join the study. Participants will receive a visit from the researcher study to provide them with information about the study. If they go on to enrol, a second visit will take place to collect further information. Follow up appointments three months and six months.
About half the participating pairs, chosen at random, will receive the intervention over 10 successive weeks (experimental group). We shall ask the remaining pairs (control group) to refrain from formal singing activities in the meantime. This should be reasonably acceptable, because we know people often remain for up to one year on waiting lists for Singing for the Brain.
Why include carers?
Participation in a regular group activity can give access to information, advice and peer support for individuals with dementia as well as their carers. These aspects are important because of the demands placed on family supporters of individuals with dementia, whose reliance on supported increases progressively, often over many years.
The significance of this study
The aim of this study is to test the feasibility of conducting a randomised trial of community singing in dementia. This would examine the effects of singing on quality of life and on the caring relationship. If the anticipated effects of community singing can be established scientifically through the PRESIDE research, with the real prospect of a conclusive trial to follow, then this will positively affect the opportunities extended to the growing population of people affected by dementia and their carers. In turn this could help to delay long-term care admissions, while reducing the cost burden on health and social care.
Further information and contact details
preside.research@nottingham.ac.uk
Researcher
Elizabeth (Becky) Dowson, School of Sociology and Social Policy
Chief Investigator
Professor Justine Schneider, School of Sociology and Social Policy
Research team
- Professor Martin Orrell
- Dr Orii McDermott
- Dr Boliang Guo, Division of Psychiatry and Applied Psychology, School of Medicine
- Professor Philip Bath, Division of Clinical Neuroscience, School of Medicine