Why Should You Care?

Alzheimer's disease is extremely prevalent in the population today, especially the United States. Currently, 5.5 million people are formally diagnosed with the disease, one in nine people aged 65 or over. Right now that population over 65 amounts to about 40 million Americans. With the first members of the baby boom turning 70 last year, by 2050, this population will be more like 90 million.

It is expensive to care for all these people. It costs the United States roughly $200 billion annually, and an expected $1.1 trillion by 2050. It is in our best interest to find a solution for this disease that will only become more prevalent every year; if you do the math, it's a new case every 69 seconds.

As shown below, diseases like cancer, heart disease, and HIV have been causing less deaths in the population since 2000. All of them have decreased in the amounts of deaths caused... except for Alzheimer's disease, which has caused 71% more. Further funds and research is needed to find a solution to this problem.

Wrapping Up

So unfortunately with two weeks left and due to some other complications, I will not be able to complete that psychology experiment. Luckily, it is and experiment that has been done many times before, so for those who are curious about the outcome, here's a summary.

It's still not clear. While music, especially classical, is known to decrease heart and respiratory rates and make you calm and focused, no credible studies have been able to show that certain types of music affect memory recall-- short or long term. So while it makes sense that certain forms of music that promote focus and attention would improve memory, it has not been proven scientifically. Another hypothesis for why music should help memory is that because music we find pleasurable releases dopamine, the "feel-good" chemical in the brain, learning while listening to music becomes a reward response, promoting memorization and learning. It is even hypothesized that listening to music we associate with positive emotions also encourages learning by enhancing memories.

There is one hotly debated subject called "the Mozart Effect." It is a phenomenon where a person's spatial-temporal reasoning is enhanced for a short time (10-15 min) after listening to Mozart's music. Spatial-temporal reasoning exercises include navigating a maze on paper, and paper cutting/folding, or aligning blocks to achieve a certain shape. While some scientists have "proved" this effect to be real, many attribute its apparent presence to chance or faulty experimental design. Again, the subject is disputed and very hard to prove.

All this debate over whether music actually affects memory and even intelligence does prove one thing though; music undeniably impacts us in significant ways. Maybe we can't always prove it, but we can feel it.