Alive Inside: A Story of Music and Memory

Alive Inside illustrates the power of music and its impact on people’s lives, with the ability to awaken memory and nostalgia.

Focusing on healthcare facilities that house the elderly, especially those struggling with memory loss, the documentary reveals how patients are treated with medication for everything from high blood pressure to blood sugar issues. Many of these individuals live a dull existence, but everything changes when they are given a pair of headphones and an iPod.

Normally placid and unresponsive, patients visibly brighten as they tap their toes to old, familiar beats. Tears of nostalgia are shed as the elderly recall childhood memories and happier times in the prime of their youth. Scientists explain how music triggers functions in the brain that chemical medications cannot mimic, and argue for the remarkable healing power that music can have for these patients.