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Good Vibes Memory Choir set to double in size ahead of fall slate of full activity

Coming off its first successful year in Cochrane, the Good Vibes Memory Choirs is set to expand its outreach by doubling the size of its choirs, and to go full steam ahead with brain research.
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Erica Phare-Bergh, rehearsing with the Good Vibes Memory Choir

One year after the Good Vibes Memory Choirs was founded last August, the pioneering musical choir group is back with a full fall slate that has the choir and the research that accompanies it expanding in scope and scale. 

Originally born from a pioneering research initiative in Victoria, British Columbia, Erica Phare-Bergh, the artistic director for the Choirs, was invited to lead a dementia-inclusive choir as part of Voices in Motion, a multidisciplinary collaboration through the University of Victoria. Phare-Bergh’s project brought together researchers from the fields of psychology, nursing, sociology, and music to examine the impact of community singing on individuals living with dementia and their caregivers.

The findings from Voices in Motion concluded that people with dementia experienced notable improvements in emotional well-being, social connection, and cognitive engagement. Researchers found that group singing emerged as a “super-stimulus”—a powerful form of engagement for the brain and the spirit. 

Motivated by the success of the University of Victoria initiative, Phare-Bergh introduced the concept to Cochrane, Alberta. There, she founded Good Vibes Memory Choirs with the goal of promoting music as a form of social prescription—a community-based intervention to address isolation and cognitive decline in individuals affected by dementia.

“What we discovered after launching the choirs in Cochrane was that they not only met the needs of people living with dementia and their care partners, but also attracted many seniors who recognized the importance of maintaining brain health,” Phare-Bergh wrote in a statement on the Good Vibes Memory Choirs website. 

“By involving a broad base of volunteers, the choirs fostered a noticeable increase in dementia awareness and cultivated a community willing to support and surround people living with dementia and their caregivers. These choirs quickly became a vital community resource, addressing the negative effects of social isolation on brain health,” Phare-Bergh added. 

Rick Bergh, Phare-Bergh’s husband and executive director of the Good Vibes Memory Choirs, said the group had a successful first year in Cochrane, and they have planned to expand the choir’s output and reach.

Beginning in September the choir will be expanding to add an additional choir that is to play out of the Frank Wills Memorial Hall beginning September 16. For the past year the choir has rehearsed out of St. Peter’s Lutheran Church and Hawthorne Community Living. This year it will also add Big Hill Lodge as a rehearsal spot. 

“It’s very exciting,” Bergh said. “We;re expanding very quickly, and part of our mission this year is to continue to promote the choir and find people with dementia in Cochrane and the surrounding area and in their homes, and to expand it to long term care facilities.” 

The addition of two new choirs will increase the total to four, and a new research partnership has been created to further study the health and social benefits of group singing. In the fall, the Choir is bringing out Dr. Stuart MacDonald–the lead for the original project that Phare-Bergh was involved with–to give lectures on the subject and assist in the research side of things. 

Rick Bergh called what the Good Vibes Memory Choir does “social prescription”, and that the end goal of the initiative is to have doctors prescribe something like what they’re doing. “This is not just people singing together for a fun time,” Bergh said. “It’s pretty significant in healthy aging.”

 

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