By Sarah Metcalfe, MD, Music for Dementia
Music is powerful. It sparks memory, soothes stress, brings joy, and bridges generations. Yet for many older people, especially those living with dementia, music is locked behind a wall of confusing technology.
In the words of Alanis Morrissette, isn’t it ironic? Almost every song ever recorded now available on demand – but the generation who invented modern music struggle to access it.
Last year, Music for Dementia surveyed 1,000 family carers. We discovered only 3 in 10 aged over-65 felt able to stream music with their loved one. Around the same time, Age UK conducted a survey discovering a massive 61 per cent of internet users over 65 never stream music or video.
People who once loved their record players, radios, and ghetto blasters now find themselves cut off from their tunes.
At Music for Dementia, we have spent the last year thinking about why this is. As a charity, we run a free online radio station called m4dRADIO.com. Built for families affected by dementia, it has six channels each playing ad-free music from a different decade.
Our listeners hit a ceiling and would not budge. We were reaching only a tiny fraction of the 940,000 families living now with dementia in the UK. Then the surveys last year gave us an inkling why: the problem isn’t music, it’s digital design.
For example, streaming platforms assume users can remember logins, navigate menus, or grasp the logic of “cloud libraries.” Even devices marketed as “easy” often require a younger person to set up and maintain. Iterative design processes mean interfaces can change without warning. It creates a quiet dependency, where the joy of music arrives only if someone else is on hand to troubleshoot.
And of course, it’s even worse for people with dementia. Relatives are encouraged to make a playlist of personal music for their loved one. I’ve done it myself. The results, when someone who struggles to speak starts to sing, can be remarkable and life-enhancing. But when I leave, I have to take my phone, and the music, with me.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
The UK music and tech industries contain some of the most brilliant and creative minds in the world. Surely this is a problem they can solve?
For example, lots of websites now offer a button to toggle to high-contrast, so they’re easier to read for people with visual impairments. Could streaming companies design ‘Music Made Easy’ versions of their home-pages? Designed for older listeners – or anyone who wants simplicity over novelty.
Or look at the children’s market, leading the way in creating screen-free, tactile, intuitive devices. Can that innovation be channelled towards older people?
As an experiment we ran a pilot ‘pimping-up’ a children’s Yoto Player with a pack of cards and stickers, so it could stream m4dradio. 180 families with dementia tried it out – and they loved it! It wasn’t perfect. It’s designed for kids, so there were things people wanted to change, but overall 92 per cent of our testers said they would recommend a Yoto Player as a music a player for older people.
The message is clear – there is a need and an appetite to design for this older audience, and industry is missing out by not doing so. It’s estimated over-65s make up 54 per cent of household spending – that’s £319bn per year.
We need a cultural shift that recognizes accessibility not as a niche add-on, but as a design principle. If we can build sleek apps for teenagers, surely we can also create tools that let older people press one button and hear the songs that shaped their lives.
That’s the Music Made Easy challenge.
Music belongs to everyone, not just to those who can swipe and tap without thinking. Until technology truly reflects that, millions of older people will remain locked out of the soundtrack of their own lives. Join the conversation, and see what happens.