Music Therapy Musings

This video of Dr. Oliver Sacks is a good introduction to the power and connection between music and Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia. I was at work today working with a young woman who has dementia. Her language skills are compromised and in the short time I have known her I have barely heard her speak.

Today we were singing. I sang many songs from the 60’s and 70’s, songs that I knew my residents had probably not known too well, if at all. As I broke into “Blowin’ in the Wind” my young resident came alive. Sitting right in front of me she burst into a big smile and began singing the song. When we had finished, she could hardly contain herself. “That was beautiful.”, she said and proceeded to reminisce about being a girl scout and all the fun she had had.

It was a magical moment; one of those moments I treasure in my work as a music therapist. The power of a simple song to reach people who can be so hard to reach is amazing.

There is a great podcast on the topic of songwriting on Music Therapy Roundtable this month.

One of my personal intervention favorites with clients is songwriting. I actually began writing my own songs before I ever became a music therapist so it was natural for me to work my skill into my clinical work. There are several methods to writing songs which I use with my older adults and Alzheimer/dementia clients. Songs we write can be as simple as taking a song that is already known to the residents, such as “If I Had a Hammer” and having them fill in the blanks.

If I had a ______________________
I’d ____________________________
I’d ____________________________
All through the _________________

You get the idea.

Spring boarding off that method…I have used well known songs and had residents simply rewrite all the lyrics, but keep the music to the original song in place. One of the long term care facilities I work in is located in the country and “country is in the name of their facility. We took John Denver’s “Take Me Home Country Roads” and rewrote the lyrics, turning it into a song about their own home/facility. We then performed the song for other residents and staff. It was fun to see the response the group got.

Finally, I have even been able to have some groups write original lyrics and music when using songwriting as a clinical music therapy intervention.

Songwriting produces some wonderful results in improving self-esteem and pride to a much needed means of self-expression. Definitely one of my favorite interventions.

Kat Fulton, MT-BC has a great short video on ways to make music with older adults.

An interesting article on music therapy with dementia clients.

I have been thinking about the founding belief on which I base my work with older adults on. That is that age has nothing to do with worth and societal contributions.

I came across this video and while this older couple does not suffer from Alzheimer’s or dementia, it was a nice reminder that older adults can still provide much to an ailing society.