In July this year, the ILC-UK (an independent, non-partisan think tank focused on some of the biggest challenges facing Government and society in the context of demographic change) established the world’s first high level Commission to investigate the current and potential role of music to help in the prevention, management, treatment and care for people with dementia. On 1th January 2018, the Commission will launch its final report at an evening reception in the House of Lords.

This pioneering project, supported by the Utley Foundation, assembled expert neuroscientists, music therapists, charities, start-ups and academics, including Professor Alistair Burns, NHS England’s National Clinical Director for Dementia, to serve as Commissioners to gather evidence on how music-based activities can change the lives of people living with dementia and their families.

The Commission, established in July 2017, has received and analysed oral and written UK and international evidence from experts of music, dementia and medicine. This evidence has contributed to an independent report, produced by researchers at the ILC-UK, to establish what we know about the impact of music on dementia; it also considers how our society can benefit from this under-utilised therapeutic intervention.

To mark the launch of the report, we will be hosting a high profile launch event in the Cholmondeley Room and Terrace, House of Lords. We are hoping to be joined by a senior Minister, as well as an invited celebrity guest, MPs, policy makers and journalists. We will also be premiering a short film on music and dementia, commissioned especially for the project, and we will hear a performance by the Alzheimer’s Society’s ‘Singing for the Brain’ choir (a choir composed of people with dementia and their carers) and hopefully the Parliamentary Choir.