Music Made Easy Roundtable highlights accessibility gaps in the music and technology sectors
Music for Dementia and the Muses, Mind, Machine (MMM) Research Centre at the University of Sheffield have co-hosted a roundtable that brought together technology manufacturers, accessibility experts, record labels, radio professionals and dementia sector leaders to tackle the barriers preventing older adults and people living with dementia from accessing music.
The Music Made Easy Roundtable is the first in a series of industry events run by Music for Dementia to support their Music Made Easy campaign that was launched in September 2025 to challenge accessibility gaps across the music and technology sectors.
Discussions centred on device accessibility, platform design, the need to co-design alongside lived experience advisors and the commercial and cultural case for prioritising older audiences.
The roundtable included findings from Music for Dementia’s Yoto Player trial, which adapted the Yoto children’s audio player for people living with dementia. It found 92% of participating families would recommend screen-free music devices for older people.
Amy Shackleton, Programme Lead at Music for Dementia, says:
“The generation that created popular music is now increasingly locked out of it. This important roundtable event challenged attendees with a fundamental question: what is needed to make music more accessible for older people, especially those living with dementia that need it the most? The answer is clear – we need cross-sector collaboration, better design practices and a commitment to co-production with users and carers.”
Following the roundtable Music for Dementia and The University of Sheffield will be creating a new taskforce to improve music accessibility for people living with dementia.
Find out more about Music for Dementia’s Music Made Easy Campaign here: https://www.musicfordementia.org.uk/music-made-easy
Find out more about Muses Mind Machine (MMM) here: https://sheffield.ac.uk/muses-mind-machine/research/technologies-ai/older-adult-wellbeing-music
Find out more about the Roundtable from the University of Sheffield: https://sheffield.ac.uk/las/news/music-dementia-and-university-sheffield-convened-industry-roundtable-address-forgotten-generation