In Tune With Good Health

Originally published in The Courier Mail, this feature explores how music therapy is supporting healthy ageing across Australia. From improving mood and reducing isolation to reconnecting seniors with powerful life memories, the article highlights the meaningful impact music can have for older people and their families.

Could music therapy help you or a loved one cope with the ageing process? Hannah McDonald reports

THROUGHOUT our lives, music plays a special role. It is linked with key events such as weddings, funerals and celebrations, and listening to it has been found to have many health and wellbeing benefits.

For seniors, music can continue to be a loved pastime with registered music therapist Sally Cooper saying the sharing of singing songs, discussing music and music-based life memories can become an important enhancement to healthy ageing.

“Participation in music therapy can improve our mood, bring us together and reduce isolation, which can be a big problem in the ageing population,” Sally said.

“It can also support long-term memory and emotional self-expression, and it can keep our mind active and create and maintain social connections.”

One of Sally’s clients, Wendy, has advanced dementia. During her music therapy sessions, Sally uses Wendy’s favourite songs to help connect her with her past and draw her gently into the present.

“Wendy was often very confused about the identities and roles of staff in the facility where she resides and who her family was,” Sally says.

“When I first started sessions with her, I spoke to her family and found out what her favourite songs may have been from her youth. I then approached Wendy at her bedside, gently singing and playing songs on the guitar, noticing which songs she seemed to have positive mood associations with.

“If I watch for when her face relaxed, her eyes lit up or she’d smile in recognition of certain songs and when she’d start singing along.”

During the sessions, Wendy’s mood would change, she’d become calm and present and she would occasionally share reminiscences about the positive memories she had in relation to different songs.

“Afterwards, her family and staff found she was able to participate more easily in daily activities,” Sally says.

As a therapeutic, goal-orientated allied health profession, music therapy is different from entertaining or teaching.

“Music therapists apply many different skill sets in their process of work, including empathy, listening, validation and observation, as well as the additional skill of playing music,” Sally says.

Through participation in music-based activities, the individual can benefit from the therapy, rather than simply listening to, or watching an entertainer as they perform.

Palm Lake Resort’s national sales and marketing manager, Marlene Cummins agrees that the value of music can extend beyond just listening.

“Music therapy is being used more frequently among elderly people who experience challenges with emotional, cognitive, physical or social tasks,” Marlene says. “Integrating music into everyday activities offers seniors an outlet to express themselves creatively, improve awareness and concentration, reduce tension and pain and get up and moving, all the while participating in something that brings them great joy.

“Music also encourages the elderly to be more social; it enables them to feel as though they are included in a social group for an enhanced feeling of belonging, and it allows them to work together to create music through singing, moving and playing instruments, strengthening the bond between them.”

Sally says that group sessions at aged care facilities often attracted other residents who simply wanted to join in the fun.

“You don’t have to play an instrument or be a great singer to participate,” we all have a background in music quite simply because everyone listens to it.

“There is also no one-size-fits-all in regards to the type of music that will be most beneficial to their therapy.

“For some people, music from their youth will be the most powerful,” Sally says.

“For others, music may have played an important role throughout their life and they have a wide range of musical interests that the registered music therapist can draw on.

“Marlene encourages people who have an older loved one with a passion for music to help them rekindle their interest.

“If your relative used to play an instrument, to get them playing again. If they used to love music, but not a musician, ask them about their favourite music and get them an easy-to-use MP3 player with their favourite hits already loaded,” she said.

“Music can create a very special bond between people. There is nothing to lose, and everything to gain.”

“I’d watch for when her eyes lit up or she’d smile in recognition of certain songs”

SALLY COOPER