{"id":35483,"date":"2026-03-08T17:58:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T17:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/35483\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T17:58:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T17:58:20","slug":"singing-circle-in-amsterdam-offers-benefits-to-dementia-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/35483\/","title":{"rendered":"Singing circle in Amsterdam offers benefits to dementia patients"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Megan Worthy still recalls singing in a choir in the Australian capital, Canberra, as she was growing up.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Now, as a rare form of early-onset dementia chips away at her vision and other brain functions, the 58-year-old is transported back to her musical youth as she and her daughter, Bronte, sing together with other people with neurological conditions in an Amsterdam concert hall, the Concertgebouw.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cIt\u2019s pretty brutal,\u201d Worthy said of her rare neurological condition. \u201cI\u2019m starting to lose everything, you know, and this is really rewarding and seeing all these people, yeah, it did make me have a lot of memories.\u201d<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">She was taking part in a so-called \u201csinging circle\u201d run by opera singer Maartje de Lint at the landmark concert venue for the elderly with what she calls \u201cvulnerable brains\u201d, many of whom have a form of dementia or Parkinson\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Millions of people have some form of dementia, a progressive loss of memory, reasoning, language skills and other cognitive functions. People can experience changes in personality, emotional control, even visual perception. Alzheimer\u2019s is the most widely recognised type, but there are many others with their own symptoms and underlying biology. Small strokes, for example, can impair blood flow to the brain and trigger what\u2019s called vascular dementia.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"People, many of them seniors with a form of dementia, take part in the \u2018singing circle\u2019 run by opera singer Maartje de Lint at the Concertgebouw concert hall in Amsterdam. Photo: AP\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/e9989600-12d0-4dd9-b508-c0d4421a43a0_32afda76.jpg\" title=\"People, many of them seniors with a form of dementia, take part in the \u2018singing circle\u2019 run by opera singer Maartje de Lint at the Concertgebouw concert hall in Amsterdam. Photo: AP\"\/>People, many of them seniors with a form of dementia, take part in the \u2018singing circle\u2019 run by opera singer Maartje de Lint at the Concertgebouw concert hall in Amsterdam. Photo: AP<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The singers in Amsterdam, who each pay \u20ac20 (US$23.50) to attend, are arranged with their carers in a circle of chairs under a ceiling hung with 14 crystal chandeliers in the venue\u2019s ornate Mirror Hall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Megan Worthy still recalls singing in a choir in the Australian capital, Canberra, as she was growing up.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[101],"tags":[20654,199,225,20658,20657,20659,15658,71,20622,20623,200,20655,20653,20656,20557],"class_list":["post-35483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-amsterdam","tag-alzheimers","tag-amsterdam","tag-australia","tag-australian","tag-canberra","tag-concertgebouw","tag-dementia","tag-europe","tag-maartje-de-lint","tag-megan-worthy","tag-netherlands","tag-parkinsons-disease","tag-posterior-cortical-atrophy","tag-selien-kneppers","tag-vascular-dementia"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116194856615559833","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}