When a favorite song starts to play, what does it remind you of? Maybe it gives you flashbacks to road trips in college, your high school prom or your wedding day. It may just give you an overall sense of happiness.
Whatever it is, many people have a deep connection between their memories and the music they were listening to at the time. For people living with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, that connection can help improve their quality of life as the disease progresses.
People who have dementia might not remember the names of their children, the faces of their spouses or whether they’ve taken today’s dose of medication, but start playing their favorite song and they’ll sing along to the tune.
Music is stored in a part of the brain that is partly independent from regions that are affected by cognitive decline, according to a 2015 study from a German research institute. In the study, published in Brain: A Journal of Neurology, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences found that the region that stores musical memories is among the lowest when it comes to brain atrophy.
Interested in music therapy?
Phone: (858) 637-3388
Email: musicandmemory@jfssd.org
Musical Biographies at Villa Musica
Phone: (858) 550-8100
Email: fchatwin@villamusica.org
“Music is in our souls. Everybody enjoys music. It’s not just for person’s living with dementia, but music is a part of us as humans,” said Rachel Lehnert of Jewish Family Service in San Diego. “It’s what connects us to humans and what connects us to emotions, and it’s just something that’s very simple to utilize and provide joy for that person.”
Lehnert is the social and wellness program coordinator for the JFS Alzheimer’s disease initiative. She said symptoms such as sundowning — increased aggression in the evenings — can be reduced for those living with dementia through the use of music tailored to their history.
“Music is supposed to help reduce symptoms of dementia such as anxiety, depression, balance issues, eating issues, apathy and a plethora of symptoms,” she said. “It also can bring back good memories and just promote good feelings as well.”
JFS’s Music & Memory program trains elder care professionals, as well as family caregivers to use music in a therapeutic manner.
The program is free for clients. It is supported by a grant JFS received from the Administration of Community Living federal program to create a more robust network of care for people living with dementia, Lehnert said.
Music therapy provides instant respite for over-exhausted caregivers
Volunteers with JFS help families create a personalized digital playlist of songs that connects to key moments in the person’s history. Then they meet with the clients occasionally to listen to the music, chat and give caregivers a little respite.
One such caregiver is Pamela Wasserman. Her 88-year-old mother, Gloria Wasserman, was diagnosed with dementia eight years ago. Pamela became the primary caregiver when her father died in September 2018.
Prior to enrolling her mom in the Music & Memory program, Pamela said caring for her was frustrating at times. Having the playlist gives her another tool to helping her mother on tough days.
“It has been a challenge, and music therapy saved my life,” Pamela said. “When she’s in a mood ... we put on the headphones and just sit there, and the next thing I know she’s smiling.
“There is nothing else that I can do or give her at that moment that would make her smile.”
Stacey Skrocki, volunteer with Jewish Family Service, right and Gloria Wasserman move to the music as they do in-home music and memory therapy Monday, Dec. 9, 2019 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Denis Poroy/Union-Tribune)
(Denis Poroy)
Headphones are key to the program, Lehnert said, because they block out other sounds that can be distracting and frustrating for people with dementia.
It’s also important to focus on the quality of the songs picked for the list, not the quantity. Gloria’s playlist consists of songs she loves, ranging from musical theater numbers like “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and “The Sound of Music” to adult contemporary hits like Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline.”
“We want it to be very selective and very personalized to that person,” Lehnert said. “It’s not just any song. We want it to be relevant to that person’s history, their life growing up and good emotions that are associated with the song.”
Programs like Music & Memory are a part of an overall shift in dementia care to person-centered interventions. Instead of music being played to a large group of people, Lehnert said, the specially curated lists aim to touch on a person’s memories associated with the music.
Villa Musica leads families to create musical biography scrapbooks
In a similar effort, the musical biography program at Villa Musica in Sorrento Valley helps people with dementia and their caregivers to not only create a song list but also make a scrapbook of memories.
Villa Musica’s musical biography program guides people living with dementia and their caregivers as they create a scrapbook and playlist to trigger memories from their lives. Fiona Chatwin, Villa Musica’s executive and artistic director, poses for a photo on Dec. 16, 2019.
(Lauren J. Mapp/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Villa Musica executive and artistic director Fiona Chatwin developed the program after seeing her mother care for her father.
The couple had traveled extensively throughout their lives, but as his Parkinson’s disease-related dementia progressed, they created a new way to have adventures together. Instead of traveling abroad, they would read diaries from their trips together, which include art, pieces of cloth and other items from the countries they had visited.
“My mom would get up on Sunday morning and say: ‘OK, where are we going to go today? Would you like to go to Brazil? Would you like to go to Morocco?’ ” Chatwin said. “They’d sit and read these books, and I thought it would be amazing to add music to those diaries because then that recollection would be so visceral and so complete.”
In a partnership with the Shiley-Marcos Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at UC San Diego, people in the early stages of dementia and their caregivers attend weekly sessions at Villa Musica. The pair work together to create the project, along with a team comprised of a musical therapist, social workers, expressive arts therapists and Chatwin.
Pages within the book include art, notes and photographs reflecting milestone moments in the person’s life, such as their wedding day and the birth of their children. The corresponding playlist is made up of songs reminiscent of those moments.
Musical biography student Sherry (whose last name is witheld to protect her privacy) works with music therapist Audra Munoz on a scrapbook during a class at Villa Musica.
(Courtesy Photo)
The next program begins May 7 and will run for five weeks, on Thursday mornings from 10 a.m. to noon.
Impacting both the lives of those enrolled in the program and her own family, Chatwin said creating musical biographies is a brief yet enjoyable reprieve from the stress of caregiving.
“The thing that really broke my mom’s heart is the fact they never do anything fun together anymore,” she said. “Making that book and creating the playlist was a fun thing that they could do together for two hours a week.”
2020-01-21 13:02:02Z
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