My former colleague Gloria Hoffner takes her guitar around to retirement communities, assisted-living homes, adult day-care centers and other facilities and conducts sing-alongs with the residents: holiday songs, hymns, oldies, patriotic songs, you name it.
She seems to have as much fun as the residents do, and she finds that familiar music somehow "gets through" to even patients suffering from memory loss. On her website she gives the following as a few examples:
1) A former Girl Scout leader now suffering with dementia recalled the past. I played campfire songs for her and six weeks later she was still talking about the sing-a-long to her children and facility staff!
2) A husband and wife's special memory. I played love songs and the wife, who had severe dementia and was usually not speaking, spoke up and delighted her husband when she said, "They were playing that song when we met."
3) A resident with dementia who almost never speaks, who sings every word of "Amazing Grace" when I do the weekly sing-a-long.
Gloria's website is http://www.guitarwithgloria.com/. She also does science programs for seniors!
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