TV star Sally Magnusson launches dementia charity in Dunfermline

The launch event held in the Glen Pavilion last Wednesday attracted an audience of around 270 people.

Sally Magnusson told the packed venue that Dunfermline, where her charity’s head office is based, had “simply come up trumps” in embracing her vision of Playlist for Life, which is a charity appealing for people to donate ipods that will be used to play personalised playlists of memorable music for dementia sufferers in the town.

Graham Steedman (pictured with Sally), president elect of Dunfermline Rotary Club said, “The basic drive is for people to give up their old ipods or mp3 players that are lying about the house probably in their thousands.

"Dunfermline Rotary Club are acting as the collectors of them so we are going to have the boxes in various location throughout Dunfermline.

“The ipods will then go to Playlist for Life and they will then download selected soundtracks on to them customised for the patient suffering from dementia.

“Our initial collection points are Waterstones, Dunfermline High School and PC World but we are hoping to get more throughout the area.” Sally Magnusson’s late mother suffered from dementia for many years. Sally claims that music enhanced her mother’s life and she continued to enjoy it while living with dementia.

She said that giving the ‘gift of music’ to a dementia sufferers has extraordinary positive effects.

Nora Rundell, chief executive of the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust, said, “We have awarded a grant of over £10,000 to assist those both living in family homes, in the community and in residential homes in ways that personalised music is used to help them on whatever stage they are at with their dementia.

“We want to look at the whole cross-section of Dunfermline to test what the practicalities of the foundation are.

"For example, we cannot make assumptions that dementia-sufferers have families who can make playlists for them.”