Group: iPods help nursing home residents

A man who hardly ever moves begins to tap his toes. A woman who cannot speak a coherent sentence starts singing the lines of a song, word for word. A seriously ill patient on pain medication finds his dosage needs to be decreased.

These and other beneficial effects of personalized music are being documented at local nursing homes as part of a pilot program by Music & Memory, a Mineola nonprofit that aims to improve residents' quality of life through iPods.

Sunday, the group held a Long Island launch in hopes of bringing the program to more facilities. The event at Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock in Manhasset focused on the iPod program's benefits for nursing home residents.

Instead of general music played over loudspeakers in facilities, Music & Memory Executive Director Dan Cohen wanted to see what would happen if the music was personalized. With $250,000 in funding from the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, he began a pilot program in four nursing homes, including at A. Holly Patterson Extended Care Facility in Uniondale.

Cohen found out what kind of music residents liked, then loaded it onto the iPods, which were then given to the residents or staff. Over time he would come back and adjust the selections based on what music seemed to have the most impact.

What staff found, Cohen said, was that the music would stimulate memories and even those who never spoke or were mostly immobile would often start to talk, sing or dance.

"With music, you're touching people on a very deep level," said Lee Grace Cannella, director of the therapeutic recreation program at Long Island State Veterans Home in Stony Brook, which has had the program for several months. "It connects you to something deep inside you that goes beyond your age or condition."

Connie Tomaino, executive director of Institute for Music and Neurologic Function, said research has shown that personalized music stimulates a certain area of the brain and taps into memories associated with that music. In those with Alzheimer's disease, this part of the brain remains active even as other functions decline, she said, and one study even showed significant cognitive improvement in such patients after listening to music.

Personalized music helps more than the residents, Cohen said. It often spurs the person to engage more with family and can ease workers' burdens. The latter is particularly true with agitated dementia patients, he said, who become calmer after listening to the music.

The Music & Memory program is in 11 nursing homes on Long Island and New York City. Roughly 350 iPods have been used by 700 to 800 people, said Cohen, who is encouraging schools, libraries and civic groups to collect iPods and iTunes gift cards to donate to nursing homes.

A. Holly Patterson, which has had the program since 2006, has 100 iPods in use, Cohen said. Resident Marilyn Richter, 75, a lifelong music lover, said the program helps her to "get away from everything" and blocks out the facility's many noises. But the iPod program has had some other unexpected results, she said.

"When it first came out I was like, 'Oh great, this is just for me,' and then I realized that this reaches other people who didn't even care that much about music," she said. "You can reach anyone through music."