My grandfather lived in an assisted-care home, for help managing with his dementia. When my grandmother would go to visit him, he'd greet her with a little squeeze, and then would walk off to wander through the hallways of the home. If she would try to walk with him, to be close, it would annoy him and he would try to shake her off. She loved her husband, and wished there were a way to at least express to him how lost she was, and how she loved him. This elderly care facility though, had the luck to be picked by a music therapist who was researching ways to help people afflicted with dementia. The music therapist wanted to try to see how well music could pierce through the layers of fog that clouded the minds of people who were incapacitated by dementia.
She asked my grandmother if there was a chance that her husband knew how to dance; it turned out that my grandfather could shake a leg, even if he was in every other way the stoic war veteran that he was. As the music system at the recreation room began to blare I Love Her by the Beatles, something transformed my grandfather. He suddenly had no problem being close to his wife, as he held her in a hug, and led her in a dance that lasted a half hour. My grandmother was beside herself with joy at what the music did to him. In centers that provide elderly care for people with dementia or Alzheimer's, music therapy has to be amongst the most important tools they have. It has a way of turning the clock back, and speaking directly to the mind in a way language or even emotion just cannot. Somehow, the rhythm and the strains of the instruments instinctively make an Alzheimer's sufferer respond to the emotions contained within.
My grandfather did not even remember his own name; he didn't remember his wife or anyone else; he had even forgotten how to speak. But when John Lennon sang to him, it moved him enough to dance. The brain processes language out of just one place; if that part of the brain comes to be damaged, there is no other way to bring the ability back. Music though, is a much more deeply established ability; it's processed all over the brain, and it's impossible to take it out until a person actually dies. You respond to music as an infant before you even learn to see properly; you respond to music in the end, after you forget how to see properly. Music therapy as a discipline has been around for 60 years now, and elderly care centers, hospices and schools rely on using it a great deal. Music therapy isn't just about having people listen to music though. It's more than that.
Anyone, burn victims, stroke victims, children with special needs, have all been helped with the abilities of music therapy. It helps heal, it helps people walk and dance in a way they never could, and it helps alleviate depression. People who have strokes, who can barely move, can be inspired to hobble a little in time to music. And when it needs to, music calms people down better than any tranquilizer. In a world where elderly care homes rely to an unwholesome level on tranquilizers and medications to keep patients from causing the caregivers any trouble, music therapy could be a godsend. If we are able to bring music therapy into every elderly care center across the nation, it could be a way to bring joy into the life of every elderly person.
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