ELAINE Lebar is a 95-year-old with significant dementia who has gone viral on TikTok for performances of classics like Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, Debussy's Claire de Lune, and Chopin's Waltz In C# minor, USA Today has reported.
Elaine's daughter, Randi Lebar, began recording her mother after moving her into a memory care facility near her home in Sagamore, Massachusetts, US.
During the pandemic, Lebar realised the recordings could be therapeutic.
Lebar continued posting old recordings of her mother on TikTok until one fateful day, a viewer requested the third movement of the Moonlight Sonata.
Her mother's first response was, "I don't know it".
Then, magic happened.
"I remember I posted it in the morning, and my phone started to blow up.
"I couldn't even open TikTok because it just crashed every time I tried to open it," Lebar said.
"By that evening, that video had four and a half million views. And the rest is history."
Since Elaine has gone viral on TikTok, Randi has been able to spread awareness to millions about dementia education, music therapy, and the magic of the human brain.
"There was a whole cadre of music therapists that were chiming in," Lebar said.
"Isn't it magical what music can do, even with a fairly debilitating brain disease?"
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