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Creative moments of joy through art, play, and handmade charm.
Music Presentation
by Laura Haw | December, 2016
​This is a music presentation which was created from a preferred music project at The Indiana Masonic Home through a grant provided by the Johnson County Community Foundation.  For more information on the project, please see this blog post.  Links to the songs are shown below alphabetically. 
This project was prompted from watching the movie "Alive Inside." The songs below can be great ice-breakers or discussion starters, often bringing up pleasant memories for many older adults. Two projects were conducted; the songs that are underlined were favorites with the first project.
My Capstone which was completed for the Master of Science in Gerontology at the University of Indianapolis consisted of two six-week projects that were conducted separately, one at the end of 2015 and one in the summer of 2016. The purpose of both projects was to bring preferred music to older adults with dementia in order to reduce disruptive behavior and increase well-being.
There is a great need to increase the well-being of those with dementia due to over 100 diseases causing it and more than 5 million Americans suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease, a leading cause of dementia. (Sung, Lee, Chang, 2011; Wall & Duffy, 2010). 
​Disruptive behavior can lead to a need for institutionalization, and then the change in environment may exacerbate the symptoms. When institutionalization is required, preferred music can be used to make the environment more familiar (Sung, Chang, Lee, 2010).
​Since the time of Aristotle and Plato, many considered music to have powerful healing benefits. The ancient Greeks considered the study of music a foundation to the study of philosophy and attaining wisdom. 
​​Franz Anton Mesmer, a medical student of Sigmund Freud, actively incorporated music into therapy by playing instruments and singing music for his patients while being colorful in clothing style and dramatic in personality.  He entertained patients and believed in the healing power of music. The positive effects of his activities led to the term "mezmerizing", and many musicians began visiting hospitals to entertain veterans after World War I. (Humphrey, 2000).
​Watch the numerous shows highlighting the great need with regards to dementia, and find out how you can contribute. Search your communities for businesses and organizations that can support you with your efforts to help!
​For both projects, caregivers logged information for data collection and analysis.
​Is the person considered a religious person? Do they have favorite hymns?  Do they like theatre, have favorite musical artists, have favorite tunes they like to hum or sing, or identify with songs unique to their life, such as a wedding song or songs shared with children? Do they now appreciate the type of music his or her parents listened to?
​These are the negative descriptors that were reduced with the use of preferred music.
​These are common terms that were used for mood and behavior after listening to music. The more specific the music, typically the better the outcome.
​With this visual, you can see that caregivers reported increases with being communicative (15%), alert (2%), calm (27%), excited (11%), happy (29%), cooperative (11%), singing (13%), and engaged (24%), during and after a music playing session. Correspondingly, a reduction in being uncommunicative (35%), anxious (14%), depressed (15%), and agitated (13%) is shown. 
​Based on information taken from the caregiver surveys that were completed for each participating resident, positive outcomes occurred from the music listening sessions. After listening, a majority were found to be conversational with caregiver and others, happy, reminiscent, and joyful!
​For Duration of positive effects, reporting for the projects differed slightly. There were three categories for duration of positive effects from the music playing sessions for the first project, reported as “an hour” (50%), “several hours” (36%), or “the rest of the day” (14%). 
​Other genres described as “Generic”, “German”, “Greek”, “Patriotic”, and “Show Tunes” were played for sessions, but are not reflected in the genre comparison because of small sample sizes.
​The greatest positive impact was with the 1940s (50%), 1950s (64%), Big Band (52%), and Preferred music (48%).  Although classical music had a slightly higher positive result than preferred, 50% rather than 48%, the negative results were 9% rather than no negative result for an individual’s preferred music. The 9% included those considering Classical as a preferred genre. Other genre with the highest negative result was Country (8%) with a positive rate of (36%).  The song selection for that genre was more modern than the country music selected to the first project which may have impacted results. The only genres without negative results is with the Christian and Preferred genres. This was true of the Christian genre even though the majority of positive results were reported for those with Christian music not listed as a preferred genre. Line Dance had surprisingly positive results, considering it was selected as a preferred genre for only a couple of people; ninety-five percent of the positive results were from those without a preference for that genre. This may be due the upbeat nature of the music and also shows that it can be challenging to predict preferences that may have been created from a lifetime of experiences . Negative results were usually sadness from memories, although most were glad to embrace these feelings.  One time a resident began wandering, feeling young again, and wanting to go home. And one time, a resident did not want to stop listening to go eat.  Negative outcomes were isolated, and the majority of outcomes very positive.
​These are a few of the specific songs chosen for the first project that were in the top 15 chosen, along with a “word cloud” showing that 40’s & 50’s music were very popular in the second project. The last song was a song that I had hesitated to include on the suggested song list, but it was frequently chosen as a favorite.
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