Research studies are no walk in the park. A study, to assess whether choral singing (singing in a choir) can help to prevent dementia in the elderly, doesn’t sound too academic.
But for the results to be sufficiently robust, the sample size has to be adequate, the duration of the study has to be long enough, about half of the sample has to be ‘cases’ who do the choral singing, and the other half the ‘controls’ who don’t do the singing. On top of that, you have to expect dropouts from the study, and this must be factored into the study.
Then you need to measure the results of how your subjects ‘perform’ in certain tests, to assess whether they have declined mentally. For this study, the tests included brain MRI, blood and urine tests, and tests of mental health and sleep quality.
Just like the feature picture of Cinqueterre with the apparent haphazardness of houses, so are the pieces of information in research that must be put together.
The study took 5 years, from 2015 to 2020. This included planning of the study, screening and recruitment of 360 elderly persons living in the community and who are not demented, for a 2-year intervention program. The subjects were randomly assigned as ‘case’ or ‘control’. The cases went for weekly 1 hour choral singing sessions, and the ‘controls had general health education and group activities. Both cases and controls had similar levels of social and intellectual stimulation for 1 hour a week for 2 years.
The paper is housed in the Mind Science Centre which you can visit virtually.
The results were subsequently published, in a separate paper. And you can read the curated version of this paper, in this blog. Choral Singing Is Good for You!
Reference
Jasmine Tan et al. Study protocol for a randomized controlled trial of choral singing intervention to prevent cognitive decline in at risk older adults living in the community.
lingsinglin
Dr Ling Sing Lin is a medical doctor by training. She worked in MOH HQ for many years, in policy making and administrative positions, until her retirement.
