This morning as I was continuing to labor over a new piece learning it measure by measure, I happened to wonder if taxing the mind is helpful in possibly staving off Alzheimer's. I've heard the brain is a muscle and that it needs to exercised to stay healthy. If that's true could it be that musical activity prevents the onset of Alzheimer's disease? Has this ever been scientifically studied? Has anybody ever known someone who was musically active who was overtaken by this disease?

I have heard some stories of this, but I think I have also heard sotries of elderly people with Alzheimer's who still remember music. It certainly can be used as therapy for Alzheimer's patients. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ISW/is_2001_April/ai_72297149

This may be a good starting point for finding out more about this subject: http://www.musica.uci.edu/mrn/subjidx980901.html

There are many scientific abstracts and articles you can access online via your local library card or school library website as well.

Using the brain in different ways helps delay some forms of dementia and Alzheimers. I wouldn't go so far as to say it prevents it. There are different types of dementia with different causes. I seriously doubt any amount of music could have ultimately prevented the physiological effects of the early- onset Alzheimers disease(plaques in the brain, etc.) my mother had.

Thank you so much for your replies and I'll read the links provided. Frank III, I'm very sorry to hear about your mother. I just wish there was some way to prevent this heartbreaking disease.

At any rate, surely pursuing music is a much better way to spend your life than to exist on a couch watching today's TV fare. I'm so grateful to God that he gave me music; an interest to have fun with. It's amazing to me that when I ask people what their interests are; many times they struggle to think of something that might be considered an interest.

Hi Jasper - thanks for your kind words.

i don't know whether playing piano prevents any disease, but heard a theory that one should continue learning new stuff and keep one mentally active even if when one gets really old, because otherwise, the mental decline would happen fast in an old person and lead to physical decline as well.

therefore, learning to play piano is a good thing for old people because that keeps one mentally active.

My mother-in-law was a music major in college, played organ in her church for many years, but had only occasional time playing the music she loved for her own enjoyment. She had 3 children at home, a full time job, she and her husband were busy volunteers for the Coast Guard Auxiliary in California, owned a boat they took out for weekly patrols on the river.

She never taught piano, she had called square dances, and sung all the bygone songs and novelty numbers for fun at family gatherings. "A Frog He Would a Woeing Go" for instance.

When she was a passenger in our back seat of the car, we would hear this cheerful voice singing lots of obscure and silly music, or Broadway songs, just lots of songs.

She came to live with us in 2000, and brought her piano to our home with her. She played more than I'd ever heard her play, but always the same pieces perhaps 8 to 10. Then as her Alzheimer's progressed, she went to an assisted care for dementia facility where there was a piano. Daily she would carry her music books to the piano to play. Unfortunately, she would play the same piece over and over, thumbing through looking for another song to play, and arriving back at the one she had just played. She did play well and one would not know of her affliction to here her play that one piece in her final days.

At her memorial service in 2003 the background music was taped piano performance pieces that she loved in her lifetime.