The sound of silence is loud.
Well not silence, exactly. There’s an alarm going off at Juniper Village at Brookline — Wellspring Memory Care, a shrill, monotone and very public reminder that not all doors are made to be walked through.
Nobody seems very concerned, as if this is the kind of mistake that just happens from time to time, the kind of ambient noise that comes as naturally to this type of environment as a ringing phone or a squeaky wheelchair.
Nestled comfortably in a rocking chair, 87-year-old resident Mary Garcia seems particularly unperturbed. A slender pair of earbuds have carried her far, far away from the persistent wailing that grounds everyone else firmly in the small office.
Kaitlin Hoover, connections director at Juniper Village at Brookline Wellspring, holds both Garcia’s hand and the pink iPod Shuffle at the other end of the earbuds. This has been a demonstration of the facility’s Music & Memory initiative, a program implemented in October that has quickly become a crucial component in the daily routines of residents like Garcia.
“If she doesn’t get her music at 4 p.m., it sends her on a rampage,” Hoover says.
The facility rotates five sets of iPods and headphones among 34 residents. Each resident has a personalized playlist, a musical itinerary carefully cultivated from questionnaires, family members and caretakers’ individual knowledge of each of their charges.
Back in her rocker, Garcia sings along to a Spanish melody, a reminder of her late husband. She lets out a tiny sigh of recognition and tears glisten in her eyes. Being anchored to the past has helped her find clarity in the present.
Music has always had a powerful presence in Garcia’s life and she enjoyed sharing it with others. She taught her niece, Karen Wertz, how to play the piano at a young age.
Wertz continues to visit her aunt at Juniper Village at Brookline, and while she’s not sure that the music on Garcia’s iPod restores her memories to full luster, she says she thinks it brings back something positive for her.
“It just brightens her up,” Wertz said.
Precisely when this bright spot occurs varies from day to day. The iPods are typically deployed closer to the evening, but if a resident becomes agitated, caregivers may decide to cue the music — which in some cases can reduce a patient’s reliance on psychotropic drugs.
Read more of this story from the Centre Daily Times.
Photo by Nabil K. Mark of the Centre Daily Times.
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