The Therapy of Music

I was going through my mail, tossing most of it, but then the Life’s Vintage Newsmagazine caught my attention. I thumbed through it to see if anything merited reading. One article did. It was entitled “Music Therapy: Let the Rhythm Move You”, by Dee Duren, Managing Editor.

If it’s about music, then I’m in! I began to read. It started with:

“Karen Rose understands the power of music.” (What? Is that my Karen Rose, my sis-in-law?) I read on: “Music has always been a part of her life, and now she considers it an indispensable part of her caregiving.

“Karen’s father was a minister, and her mother played the organ at church.” (OMG! That IS my sis-in-law and she didn’t tell me about it.) I read on:

“When her father’s health was failing, he was hospitalized and given morphine. “He would become very agitated,” Karen said, “All I had to do was start singing this one song, and he would calm down. He would lie back down and would calm down and would start singing with me.”

So, when hospice workers recently asked Karen if she thought her mother, Lydia, would benefit from music therapy, she said yes. Lydia is 99 years old and has been diagnosed with dementia. Karen and her husband give Lydia 24-hour care. “I had no idea what to expect,” Karen said. “It was very surprising to me when it was offered. It’s been one of the best things that has happened with mother.”

A music therapist came to the family’s home with a guitar and sat down to speak with Lydia. She also brought a tambourine, maracas, and a bell. “At first Mother didn’t want anything to do with it,” Karen said. Lydia refused to take one of the musical instruments herself, but she did agree that she’d like to hear some of the old, familiar hymns she’d once played in church. “You could just see Mother calming down and relaxing,” Karen said.

As the visits continued, Lydia went from holding a tambourine on her lap to playing it as she sang along with the music therapist. “It’s so fun to watch the interaction between the two of them. My mother will sing her songs, and it brings so much joy and peace. It’s calming for my mother, and it’s also calming for me. After the first time, I thought, I’m going to do this for myself too.”

“During very difficult times, I can start singing out loud, and you can just see my mother change. I had no idea how important music is to someone in my mother’s state.”

One of the most important results of the therapy is that Karen catches glimpses of the mother she once knew. The singing sparks memories and, for a while, Lydia’s dementia seems to recede.

“I feel like my mom’s back,” she said.

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Back to Donna. How sweet it was to read the article and see glimpses of the “mom” I once knew, too! I’ll be spending time with Mom, Karen & George next week. I plan on singing with Mom, too! I read the words of the therapist that said: “Music stays with us to the end. That and our spiritual sense are the two things that we don’t lose.”

Music is the connection to happy memories for me, too! You see me often adding a chorus or song to many of my blogs. That’s where I came from. And, that’s where I am now.

There is nothing like sentimental love songs that take me back to my younger years with my young (and older) husband, and the sweet baby lullabies and songs I sang to my littles. Then there are all those Gospel songs that our quartet sang regularly.

Today, it is so many beautiful worship songs that my heart lifts to my Lord. Music is therapy for us and whatever that music sounds like for you and it brings you comfort, peace and even motivation, let’s turn the music on for ourselves and our loved ones.

Hans Christian Andersen wrote, “Where words fail, music speaks.” I know that is true. How about you?