singing, the brain and a worship question

I found this really interesting, once upon a time, I volunteered to work with stroke victims rehabilitation and was most interested in the cases where speech was affected, and interested to discover that many could still sing words even if they could not say them [ditto people with stutters]. I realised that this meant that different parts of the brain were used to process words in singing and in speech. What I was curious about was whether it might be possible in at least some cases for people to relearn speech via singing. Well here's yet another scenario which reawakens that old question for me.
"I don't know what it is that changes in the brain when people with Alzheimer's sing, but obviously something does change and there is something very beneficial about it. It seems to kick-start something in the brain and has made such a difference to Bill."

Now we know that the brain retains the ability to make new connections and to cross-wire, so to speak, between centres which do different kinds of jobs [this is probobly the means of metaphor-generation and comprehension, if "Philosophy in the Flesh" is correct], so there is to my limited knowledge a possibility that such connections could be encouraged to re-wire speech, though it might depend on the type of damage. And I had a choir master once who claimed that if anyone could use intonation in speech, he could teach them to sing. If that was correct, then it implies that the link between speech and song can be forged.

The thing that this has now got me pondering is the relationship between singing and understanding, as in hymnody and worship ... Is it that we are engaged in a more complicated proceedure in singing the faith than saying it? Perhaps singing objectifies what we utter more and make it more an object of potential contemplation? Does choral speaking of set words work like singing or speech or something else?
Hmmm

BBC NEWS | Health | How singing unlocks the brain: brain, singing, therapy, alzheimers,