Alive Inside: Reprise

Perhaps the greatest power of documentary film is its ability to reveal to us experiences, feelings, and events that might have otherwise remained beyond our awareness and our imagination. Two years ago in this space (Scheidt, 2013), I reviewed a brief version of " Alive Inside, " a video by Michael Rossato-Bennett. That remarkable film demonstrates the almost immediate reappearance of behavioral normalcy among dementia-struck nursing home residents who listened to individualized or personalized music. The film follows Dan Cohen, a social worker, who single-handedly delivered this experience to these persons by supplying nursing homes with iPod players. The musical intervention provided strong evidence that despite living with brains damaged by demen-tia, a significant part of who they are may survive intact. As noted by Oliver Sachs, well-known neurologist, the music " outfoxes " the pathophysiology of Alzheimer's dementia, moving through myriad pathways not yet damaged by the disease. According to Dr. Bill Thomas, founder of the Eden Alternative, blinded by the limiting expectations that come with a diagnosis of dementia, professional health care workers often tend to see long-term care residents as " mere remnants of their former selves. " Moreover, as the dementia grows more severe over time, long-term care professionals often assume that the essential self of these residents has expired—with care focusing primarily on management of physical functions of someone living a zombie-like existence. We reprise here and offer this follow-up review of Alive Inside for three reasons. First, it is a wonderful film and audiences should prompted to see it if they have not yet done so. Second, it is now a completed film, embellished with content and features not available in the original screener. Third, many gerontologists remain unaware of the history of individualized music as a health-related intervention for dementia-affected persons. It is not a new notion; to the contrary, this intervention has been the topic of systematic research for almost 25 years in the health care arena (Gerdner, 1992). Although research data offer meaning in numbers, the unique power of the new Alive Inside resides in the fully engaging images it shares of music-infused residents who move instantly from chronic states of agitation, depression, anxiety, and sheer moribund existence (e.g., wheelchair-bound " slumpers ") to that of singing, finger snapping, swaying, and dancing. Their mood changes are obvious and immediate—they are happy and smiling. They recall not only lyrics but have memory …