SINGING to promote health is the latest experience in the Belong Macclesfield community events programme which sees older people showing what they’re made of at special vocal ‘workouts’ designed to engage the whole body, from strengthening vocals and language ability, to promoting posture, memory and cognitive skill.
Open to the residents and tenants, with an invitation extended to everyone living in the local area, the Singing for Health workshops comprise a range of vocal exercises that aid breathing, projection and the articulation of sound, whilst building upper body muscles.
The dementia specialist enlisted trained opera singer and choir leader Helen Fehily for the sessions which support its customers living with the condition, as well as others, such as Parkinson’s.
Participants are challenged gently, for example, being divided into subgroups to sing ‘rounds’ simultaneously, which requires much concentration at the individual level but without any pressure to achieve accuracy.
With music activating different parts of the brain to speech, remarkable outcomes have been seen, including those with difficulty speaking or who are largely non-verbal performing songs from their past. Other benefits include maintaining speech and language, stress relief and the promotion of lung function, along with the pleasure of companionship gained from the gatherings.
The choice of songs is partly participant led, exploring rhythms and music from different genres and decades with favourite tunes from bygone eras, with musicals, theatre and popular culture also making for conversational topics and the chance to reminisce.