May 19, 2022
- By : Ambassador Team
Here at The Ambassador music has a special place in our hearts. From our Music and Memory Program for Kindred to incorporating music into our movement classes and the endless musical entertainment provided for our residents — it’s everything to us!
Music Speaks… when the HEART and SOUL cannot
Our listening program is a group experience that enhances socialization amongst residents, enabling them to share a musical choice with their peers. We incorporate live marimba (a deep-toned xylophone of African origin) and live piano sing-a-longs with lyric sheets. Leading residents through artists, decades, and music genres helps trigger long-term memory as repertoire is deeply ingrained in memory.
Pitched one full octave below the bass xylophone, this Suzuki Bass Bar features an oversized bar that is carefully tuned for a maximum low-frequency response. We incorporate this to assist residents in following a conducting queue through a team-building exercise where each participant receives a note of the melody – building a song and a sense of accomplishment hand-in-hand.
Unique to The Ambassador, our Music & Fitness program provides structure and predictability to movement in a safe place. Led by our Exercise Physiologist, Emily, every movement is tied to the rhythm of a live drum. Emily’s exercises are a proactive approach to health and fitness, helping reduce the likelihood of atrophy/falling. Elements of spontaneity add energy and help increase participation within the group. With all our programs here at The Ambassador, we know that personalization increases both engagement and enjoyment, and that’s what we aim to do.
The Music and Memory Program for Kindred at The Ambassador of Scarsdale has been designed to further enable family members and care partners to appreciate the power of music and how it is a thread connecting each to one another even in instances when words no longer can. Not only does the staff create individualized care plans, but they also tune in and work and play with family members and care partners to essentially recreate the soundtracks that have accompanied residents’ life stories.
This program is not only person-centered, it meets individuals where they are, regardless of their level of cognition or ambulation and has established a new best practice and gold standard in the care industry. Trained staff will be using logs to measure individualized behavioral objectives shown through residents’ cognitive and social responses to the program in hopes of seeing desirable long-term outcomes in order to make therapeutic music a standard of care – Jean Dunphy, President
As a Certified Music & Memory program provider, The Ambassador’s hope is to add to the research that is helping the healthcare industry understand how this form of personalized therapeutic music benefits people with cognitive impairment.
Tags: music and memory, Music Therapy