She's still a dancer
March 13, 2023 12:03 AM   Subscribe

 
Since this is an organization that promotes music and the elderly, I'm going to assume they had the consent of her family to post this video and I'm also going to assume that this is part of their outreach and that they mean well.

But honestly, I'm not a fan of reaction videos and I find this one to be absolutely ghoulish. There is no magic here; there's just suffering being put on display for our amusement and feelings.

Having watched loved ones suffer from alzheimer's and dementia, the very hardest days are the ones where their memories are jogged in just the right way and suddenly they're back to their old selves. And then you lose them again and it's just so painful to watch because you know they're still in there and if only you could replicate whatever it was that caused them to come through....
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:23 AM on March 13, 2023 [6 favorites]


My dad had Alzheimer's. I quite liked both videos. The way the faces lit up! To me, anything that can bring a moment of such joy and laughter is a good thing. Even if the moment is fleeting. Thank you for sharing.
posted by evilmomlady at 6:17 AM on March 13, 2023 [5 favorites]


Very touching
posted by DJZouke at 8:22 AM on March 13, 2023 [1 favorite]


A friend of mine who went into music therapy did a research project for her thesis where she observed that patients who had been musicians could receive signals to muscles that otherwise didn't respond or didn't respond well, when listening to music they'd performed in the past.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:34 AM on March 13, 2023 [4 favorites]


Man, life is crazy, amazing how different people can go through similar experiences and see similar things and have completely different reactions.

I'm sorry for your losses Ron. There's nothing that compares to the anhiliation of our conceptions of self that come with dementia.

My father had relatively mild dementia over his last two years, but my best friend's dad went through fairly severe dementia, and we always cherished the moments when they transiently forgot the current prognosis and briefly lived out of time. It's absolutely somewhat ghoulish but...life and existence is pretty fucking ghoulish. And that terror waits for all of us.

I sometimes think..., even now, living in what a few decades hence i might consider the prime of my life, I live for those breif moments of forgetting that I will die, that I have long ago started down a road of decay. I enjoy those moments immensely.

I feel quite a bit of joy watching Videos from Musica para Despartar, but will think a while about who I send these to...
posted by midmarch snowman at 7:31 AM on March 14, 2023 [3 favorites]


Thank you midmarch snowman for your condolences and your perspective.

This video reminded me a lot of my grandmother. She would periodically begin folding things. If she was sitting in a chair with a throw blanket, she'd very carefully and methodically take the blanket and fold it into a neat and pristine stack on her knees. No one could convince her not to fold things, and if the blanket fell off her knees she'd start folding the clothes she was wearing or the air in front of her. It was so difficult to watch her move with such empty and spiritless intent. She just wasn't "there" but she continued to do things on autopilot.

I'm sure some people look at this video and music must be "breaking through" to this poor woman and bringing her some joy. That's not the way I see it, but even if it were the case, I don't think it's our place to watch her and project onto her what we think is happening. Let her enjoy the music without the entire Internet watching for the feels.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:28 AM on March 14, 2023


And then you lose them again and it's just so painful to watch because you know they're still in there and if only you could replicate whatever it was that caused them to come through....

That's an excellent way to put it.

At a point when my father didn't know who I was, he seemed exactly like his old self when we sang a familiar song together. I enjoyed that, it seemed quite miraculous and I understand why people like seeing someone come back to their old self under the influence of music. But it does feel a little problematic to watch a video of a stranger in that situation. Like, I'm fairly sure González Saldaña didn't know lots of people would be watching her.
posted by BibiRose at 8:28 AM on March 14, 2023


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