D ear Doctors: I know therapists use music to get through to people with Alzheimer’s disease who don’t really connect with anything else anymore. I just saw on the news that music might also help protect your cognition. I’m curious about both of those things and want to hear more about them.

Dear Reader: You are asking about a healing practice that, while making headlines today, dates back centuries. We’re tempted to cite the use of music in psychiatric hospitals in the early 1800s as one of the earliest formal uses of it to improve mental and emotional health. However, when you consider the role of music in our own daily lives, this approach reaches back to the dawn of humanity. We sing babies to sleep with lullabies and hum to ourselves when we’re content. We chant or sing in groups

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