WELLBEING AND SOCIAL INTEGRATION OF PEOPLE WITH ALZHEIMER’S AND OTHER DE-MENTIAS AND THEIR CARERS THROUGH COMMUNITY MUSIC

Abstract

Community music is commonly conceptualized as an activity of artistic creation and practice carried out in community that, framed in community art, acquires a relevant mediating function, allowing not only artistic experiences but also the creation of spaces for relationships and collaboration that favour the improvement of people and communities. This research aims to describe and analyze the contributions of community music practice to the improvement of the wellbeing of people with dementia and their family environment and to determine its potential for social and individual transformation. The study was carried out with 16 subjects, patients with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias in a psychogeriatric clinic and their family carers. It follows a descriptive method and the methodological approach is qualitative. The techniques used for data collection were observation, survey and semi-structured in-depth interview. The results indicate that community music allows generating very positive emotional experiences, asso-ciated with states of happiness and pleasure, which can be linked to people’s subjective wellbeing, and provides spaces for social inclusion for people with dementia and their carers. Group singing activities that use music from the cultural and biographical heritage of its members encourage participation, in-teraction, and feelings of belonging to a group, as well as helping to relive life experiences, and thereby recover personal identity. Likewise, community musical practice has revealed itself as an instrument of expression and emotional management that constitutes an ideal ecosystem for the development of free expression, spontaneity and creativity.