As soon as he heard the music, Henry lifted up his head. His eyes widened and lit up in recognition of the tune. His voice carried out through the room as he began to sing along with the familiar music.
A video of Henry reacting to the music was posted on the website of the Music & Memory program to show just one example of how music has made positive impacts on the behavior of seniors living with Alzheimer’s or dementia. In recent years, several neuroscience studies have found that music can actually reveal deep emotional recall, even in persons with severe dementia.
Emma Hyatt, a junior at Saratoga Springs High School, was inspired to create a club called Generation Outreach after hearing about the program from her mother. She founded the club this fall in hopes of expanding the movement into the Wesley Health Care Center in Saratoga Springs.
“My mom works for an organization called LeadingAge New York, and she told me about the Music & Memory Program,” Hyatt said. “I thought it was a great idea, so I ran with it and made it into a club at the high school.”
The club’s mission is to “improve the quality of life for individuals suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease through the use of music.”
“Emma is actually one of my tennis players and approached me midway through the season about advising a new club she was thinking about starting,” said social studies teacher and tennis coach Tim O’Brien. “I was able to find out some information about the program, and from there we established this club and tried to figure out what our role was going to be in terms of connecting the Music & Memory program to the nursing homes.”
“It’s the first club in the nation that really has taken on this role of connecting with the nursing homes for this specific program, so in that way it’s pretty neat that you see something like this started by a junior in high school,” O’Brien added.
Since then, the club has decided their role will be to collect and donate iPods to the Wesley Center, so the staff can help share music with more residents.
After enough iPods are collected and donated to the center, staff members will be trained in January by a representative of the Music & Memory program on how to download and store music to the iPods, as well as be trained in how to question the patients after they have started listening to the music.
“There’s a series of questions you start asking [the patients], and they’re fairly simple yes-or-no questions you’re asking them,” O’Brien said. “Then, as they start to react to the music, the patients will expand on their answers and you’re able to actually ask them about memories that surround the songs they’re listening to.”
O’Brien also explained why the music makes such an impact on patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia.
“The portion of your brain that stores music is really the last part of the brain impacted by Alzheimer’s and dementia, so what the music allows them to do is reconnect and draw out past memories by listening to the music,” he explained. “It’s pretty amazing actually, the website has some examples of patients that you can see—they’re almost awakened by the music.”
“I think it's amazing that a simple thing such as music can trigger memories and help dementia and Alzheimer's patients communicate with others,” Hyatt added. “It's important because this is a great drug-free way to help cope with Alzheimer's and dementia.”
O’Brien said he thinks the club is great for bridging the gap between today’s youth and older generations.
“Anytime you can get young kids connecting with older generations of people, it’s a pretty amazing connection that’s formed, especially if it helps those older patients remember things that they might not be able to without that connection,” O’Brien said. “I hope [Generation Outreach] continues to grow, but I think you’ve got to have those special kids, which we know are in every school, that just have to be willing to take that step and hopefully connect with somebody and get the program started.”
As for the future of her club, Hyatt said she is hopeful that the Music & Memory organizations will continue to be implemented throughout the nation.
“I'm hoping that Generation Outreach will influence other high schools around the area, the state, and maybe even the country to help seniors and nursing homes have a Music & Memory Program for Alzheimer's and Dementia residents,” Hyatt said. “I also hope that we will be able to reach out to other nursing homes around the area.”
