Music therapy is an effective way to manage some of the common challenges faced as we reach older adulthood. It may be a way to find meaning, preserve memories, find value as a group member, provide an avenue for processing life changes, and certainly may enhance the quality of one’s life. In individual or group music therapy sessions, the older adult can enjoy himself/herself and make a choice to be well through music.
How does music therapy work for older adults? Every music therapy session is different. Board-certified music therapists (MT-BCs) use a wide variety of activities in sessions, including active music-making, improvisation, listening, composing, using live and recorded music, instruments and singing. Music therapy for older adults may be in group or individual format, in private homes or care facilities; for hospice patients, sessions are generally provided for individual patients and often involve other family members.
Independent Older Adults
Let's face it: growing old isn't for sissies. There are difficult challenges as we face loss after loss including loved ones, our homes, our professions and our place in life. Music therapy can help process these changes and work towards finding ways through the challenges to new pathways that create wholeness in the older years.
For the independent older adult, music therapy groups may have a special focus such as performing, technology, or learning. More than a choir or class, music therapy targets and honors the challenges and strengths of each person through the careful planning of the therapist who designs each session for the participants’ success and growth as individuals.
Group Music Therapy
For group music therapy in long-term care facilities, participants sing familiar songs, play instruments, listen to music, dance and laugh together. Sessions may tie into the facility themes and share in celebrations together. Each person is invited to share memories and thoughts with the group, and is valued and recognized as an important part of the whole. Families often join in as a way of having a positive connection with their loved one.
Memory Impairment
Music therapy for memory impairment is proven and effective to help with social needs, self-expression, and to help create positive shared experiences with families and caregivers facing a difficult and often emotional diagnosis of memory loss. Music has a unique way to touch the deepest part of a person’s brain, and even when much cognitive function has been damaged, people often have a joyful response to the right music. Singing, listening, playing an instrument, and sharing a musical experience with the MT-BC and family creates a beautiful moment which can be treasured.
Singing may be a particularly useful approach for people with dementia because it provides a point of contact with another human being and makes no cognitive demands. - (Clair, 2008)
Individual Music Therapy for long-term care
Individual music therapy is provided for patients who are bed-bound or otherwise unable to function in group settings. We may make music together, write a song, or sing familiar and comforting songs. The individual may be an active or passive participant – whichever is needed for that moment together to achieve specific goals. Music therapy often brings hope and healing when combined with medical treatment to create overall wellness.
Hospice Care
For hospice care, music therapy serves as a way to maintain dignity and control at the end of life. In these special visits, the MT-BC provides music as a stimulus for sharing memories and processing life changes, uses music to help ease the person’s physical and emotional pain, and helps the patient’s loved ones manage the burden of grief before and after the patient passes away.
"It is important to know that it is never too late to learn to use music to enrich the quality of one’s life.” – (Clair, 2008)