Metal Shock Finland (World Assault )

For the fifth year in a row, The Alzheimer Association of Kanta-Hame’s (Finland) “Music Improves Brain Health” campaign is being held at International Brain Awareness Week (week 11). The purpose of the campaign is to reach out to different age groups and provide them with information about the health effects of music in the brain in a preventative and accessible style.

INSOMNIUM guitarist Markus Vanhala will represent the band in the campaign: –”My grandma – who passed away last year, so may her soul rest in peace – got a memory disease diagnosis at the end of her life and I watched her mind go during her last years. Grandma clearly began re-living the good old times, the late relatives and acquaintances made a comeback and lived with her and she talked about my father as if he was still a kid. So, some of the things she said were pretty wild. The weird thing was, of course, that she remembered me until the end even though I didn’t exist in her youth… Grandma seemed very happy during her last years and was clearly living in the good old days. It was very contradictory – one might even call it tragicomic. One’s own happiness is the most important thing, of course, in a way life is better that way than while being bedridden in some nursing home with a fully functional and active mind.”

The campaign highlights the importance of Music Testament in nursing, because it is extremely important to know the patient’s favorite music because it can be used in a positive and rehabilitative way in the patient’s daily life.

“High Hopes by Pink Floyd is my all-time favorite song and I hope it’ll be played in my funeral (having some high hopes, hehe.) So, that song and Type O’ Negative’s Love Me To Death, which me and my wife danced to in our wedding, will probably generate the biggest reactions in me forever even if my mind stops reacting to things otherwise. I must also mention the first song that struck me as a kid and determined the direction of my life, The Final Countdown by Europe. It will probably make me headbang even on my deathbed.” says Markus Vanhala.

Read the entire interview of Markus Vanhala, here.

Follow the campaign: https://www.facebook.com/Kamutieto/