Salford University music student to perform for nursing home residents to spread ‘happiness and joy’

A Salford University student is raising money for Dementia UK as part of her Uni project to provide music therapy to elderly nursing home patients.

Paige Kearns, 23, a popular music and recording student at Salford University, believes that music can help those who suffer from mental and cognitive handicaps.

Speaking to NQ, Paige said “The aim of what I’m doing is to use music in a way that helps those who suffer from mental health issues, or any health issues that affect the brain.”

The Salford student will be performing at a nursing home in her hometown, Stoke-on-Trent tomorrow (26 November).

The project titled Musimagination is part of her arts administration qualification, an idea she got when visiting the same nursing home she will be performing at.

“My mum works in a nursing home and over the summer I visited, and it really got me down. The residents looked unhappy and it got to me,” said Paige

“The idea of Musimagination is to use music to help people. I never thought of it in that way until I visited the nursing home.

“I’ll be performing ’50s and ’60s music to hopefully take the residents back to a nostalgic period in their life, to make them happy and to spread joy.”

Paige hopes to continue to help vulnerable or disadvantaged people in the future by using music.

“In the future I would like to do something like this. I’m looking to go into schools to use music to help kids who have issues such as Autism or ADHD,”  she said.

“Having ADD myself, I know that in school music is one of the only things I responded to or engaged with, so I’d like to help kids like that.

“Hopefully one day, it’ll be a professional business that is there to use music to help people from all walks of life.”

If you wish to donate to the Dementia UK fundraiser, you can do so here.