Touch Screen Collaborative Music: Designing NIME for Older People with Dementia

This paper presents new touch-screen collaborative music interaction for people with dementia. The authors argue that dementia technology has yet to focus on collaborative multiuser group musical interactions. The project aims to contribute to dementia care while addressing a significant gap in current literature. Two trials explore contrasting musical scenarios: the performance of abstract electronic music and the distributed performance of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Findings presented in this paper demonstrate that people with dementia can successfully perform and engage in collaborative music performance activities with little or no scaffolded instruction. Further findings suggest that people with dementia can develop and retain musical performance skills over time. This paper proposes a number of guidelines and design solutions.