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As a retired professor with a family history of Alzheimer’s disease, Carol Conaway ’70 was troubled when her memory began to slip, forgetting appointments and where she left her keys. She started avoiding social events, as it became harder to keep up with the conversation. “These were old friends, and we had a lot in common,” she says, “yet I was having trouble thinking of things to say.”

Medical tests confirmed her memory wasn’t as sharp as it had been, and she began to take medication for it. But a major turning point came last summer, when her wife, Cicely, showed her a newspaper ad from a violin teacher looking for students.

Conaway started playing violin at age 9, entranced by the instrument from children’s concerts at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music. “With my violin, I could really pour out my soul,” she says. She continued long enough to play in the orchestra at 91�Թ���, but eventually, music fell by the wayside as she took on a career in academia.

“I saw the ad and thought, ‘it’s now or never, Carol,’” she says.

She and her violin of more than 50 years—which she named Shira, or Hebrew for “song”—began to work on a Mozart sonata with her new teacher. “I decided that my ability to do the art I enjoy more than anything else might not last much longer, so I committed myself to practicing with a vengeance,” Conaway says.

“Playing music is engaging in speaking a language that is both aesthetic and deeply emotional. Both are necessary for ‘the life of the mind.’”

From reading the music, to training her fingers, to rebuilding the strength to stand and play with good posture, the experience has not just improved her memory but transformed her physically and emotionally. She is socializing more, and her friends and Cicely are thrilled that she is playing music again.

“I’ve been lit up. Now I have something to say, to do,” she says. “It’s just a pleasure to pick up my instrument again and play.”