Patent ID: 9659505
Date: 2017-05-23
CPC Classifications: A61B,G09B

Claim:
1. A dementia therapy method utilizing procedural memory, the method comprising: adapting a musical instrument for playing by persons with dementia, the adapted musical instrument comprising: one to thirteen tone bars that are sized sufficiently large for easy striking and arranged on a playing surface, and a programmably assignable musical note or percussive beat sound that is generated in response to striking the tone bar by hand or mallet; providing one of the adapted musical instruments to each one of a plurality of said persons being designated as players in a musical ensemble; determining a level of a player's instrument playing ability by testing the player's use of hand and mallet in striking one or more tone bars in patterns of increasing difficulty; programming each player's musical instrument to enable playing a tune component that is designed according to the player's playing ability; wherein the tune component is a set of one or more musical note or rhythmic beat sounds in a pattern that fits at least a portion of the notes and beats of a tune; training each player by repetitive practice on their programmed musical instrument; and coordinating playing of the musical instruments by the plurality of players combining their respective tune components into a complete tune performed as an ensemble; thereby enabling each player to gain self esteem from contributing according to ability to a pleasant sounding musical performance.