Singing in individual music therapy with elderly persons suffering from dementia

The focus of this research in progress is my clinical work with persons suffering from dementia, where we sing familiar songs from long ago in the music therapy. In an exploratory case study approach I have made systematic observations of 6 individual residents living in a gerontopsychological unit. My hopotheses are - that singing has an influence on persons with dementia - that this influence can be defined upon communicative characteristics - that persons with dementia in an advanced stage communicate musically, and that this musical communication can be recognised by a system of communicative signs - that music therapy has an influence on aspects in residential daily life for the person with dementia. Data collection has been based on video recording, heart rate measurements, day-to-day questionnaires, case descriptions and music therapist's log