New Program Harnesses Power of Music to Facilitate Expression, Movement
The Alzheimer’s and Dementia Resource Center is now offering an exciting new resource for Central Florida Care Partners and their loved ones living with Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia.
The Music Box program leverages the incredible power of music to inspire connection, reminiscence, and uplifted moods for both you and your loved one navigating brain changes.
“Music is the first thing we respond to as infants, and it may never leave the person as the disease progresses. We all have some relationship to music, and we can use that to help build relationships, build deeper meaning and paradoxical lucidity,” says Program Specialist Ashley Gravatte, who has a graduate certificate in music therapy and more than a decade of experience working with older adults. “How can we bring them into the moment?”
Her new program is designed to cultivate more of these in-the-moment experiences.
To participate, you’ll simply answer a few questions about your loved one’s music taste, and then you’ll go home with your own music box — complete with instruments such a steel drum, caxixi, frame drum, and egg shakers — to use with your loved one.
You’ll receive a recommended playlist created just for you. Some songs will be accompanied by questions to spark conversation and deeper connection. Gravatte will also include examples of how to creatively switch up familiar songs, exchanging the lyrics with new ones pertaining to that day’s task.
“You’re building emotional buy-in because if it’s a fun activity, if it’s engaging, then I’m going to want to take my shower today. Or I’m going to want to get up and go to the doctor,” says Gravatte.
She’ll teach you how to use the ISO principle with your loved one – essentially allowing you to uplift or calm your partner’s mood with music.
You’ll have access to videos that demonstrate each instrument in your kit, as well as prompts to inspire you to have a musical conversation with your loved one. Each kit will include photographs from the time periods the songs were released as well.
“When I worked at a skilled nursing facility in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, I worked with a man who was in the middle to late stages of Alzheimer’s disease,” Gravatte wrote in a recent blog article. “He was unable to communicate as he once did. He was not oriented to self, place, or time, but the moment I started playing ‘Stormy Weather’ by Lena Horne he was instantaneously transported back to his days as a pianist at the Copacabana on E 60th street in New York City.”
Music wound up being a tool that enabled him to connect not only with the moment, but with his family.
We all intuitively understand the power of music. When we employ sound to connect more meaningfully with our partners, the results may blow us away.