Students Use Music to Trigger Memories in Local Nursing Home

Nico Davidoff ’17 was sitting with Mary at RiverCourt Residences, a senior living facility in West Groton. They talked—not in English, but in French, a language Mary said she had not conversed in "for decades” before she met Nico. The Groton student then took out his phone. "I plowed through a list of songs I picked for Mary,” he says. One of those songs had prompted Mary to remember her French.

 

In another corner of the room, a Groton student, trying to engage a different resident of the facility's memory unit, asked, "What’s your favorite song?” Hesitantly, the woman shared a song title, and the student plugged it into Spotify, which generated a playlist from the favorite song’s era. Across the room, a resident who hardly speaks began singing along when a student played a song from her past.

On Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday afternoons, eleven Groton students travel to RiverCourt Residences to participate in a program known as Music & Memory. Each Groton student works with an individual resident, participating in activities and listening to music from his or her past, with a goal to create a playlist of music that will both be enjoyable and help trigger memories. 

Studies have shown that music can tap memories in those with Alzheimer’s and dementia, as the brain is programmed to connect past experiences with the music from that point in time.

Founder Dan Cohen “first had the idea for Music & Memory when he wondered how he could still enjoy his favorite ’60s music if he ended up in a nursing home,” according to the Music & Memory website. He then began to connect residents of nursing homes with the music of their pasts.

In one striking exchange at RiverCourt, a Groton student asked a resident, “Do you recognize this song?” Her memory triggered, she replied, “This is the song I sang at my daughter’s wedding.”

Groton students may choose service options, including the Music & Memory program, as their required afternoon activity. Yanni Cho ’16 was drawn to the program after previous exposure to musical therapy. “I have seen the wonders that music can do to those suffering brain injuries," she says. "For example, while an aphasic patient may not be able to speak words as simple as ‘apple’ or ‘pear,’ he may be able to recite nursery rhymes when you play him music.”