People sit in a circle. Their caregivers or family members join them. Music is played, singing and movement encouraged. Photos, or other pictures, may be shared.
South Shore Conservatory’s creative arts therapies department is partnering with the Duxbury Senior Center to bring its Memory Café to a new location at the senior center and a wider population this month.
Conversation is a big part of the Memory Café, a social gathering for people living with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. Participants and their caregivers are encouraged to take part in activities and enjoy spending time with others.
The outreach program’s sessions are led by certified music and dance therapists, and include music, movement, and other activities all participants can enjoy together. A yoga teacher is on hand as well.
To broaden the clinical program’s reach, participants have the choice of attending in-person or virtual sessions, which are being offered on alternate Thursdays from 1 to 2 p.m. The first virtual session is scheduled for Jan. 13.
Although there is no cost, participants are required to call 781-749-7565 x47 to register. Masks are required for in-person sessions. “We are always masked,” said music therapist Amanda Reopell. “One hundred percent. We ask people to remain masked.”
“We are excited for this collaboration because it allows our memory cafés to reach even more participants in our beloved South Shore community,” said the conservatory’s creative arts therapy director, Kristi Faby, in a statement. The Duxbury Senior Center, she said, “plays a crucial role” in outreach efforts to the senior community throughout the town.
The Memory Café has previously operated at the conservatory’s Duxbury base, the Ellison Center. The move to the Duxbury Senior Center, located at 10 Mayflower St., provides a larger space and an opportunity to serve more clients.
At the conservatory music therapists work with children from ages “zero to three” and older, as well as adults. At the Memory Café, the team takes on the other end of the age spectrum. The overall goal, Reopell said last week, is improvement in clients’ quality of life. Music therapists such as herself use songs, instruments, and movement to help people connect by singing together and through other activities.
“Music is just the connector, it kind of brings everyone together,” Reopell said. “The general goal is maintaining cognitive levels and creating a space for participation for people and their loved ones to have a time to socialize.”
The focus is not only music and movement, she said. “It’s to give people that safe space to express themselves … to have time with others having the same experiences.”
Family members and caretakers benefit from the sessions as well. “The social gatherings allow caretakers and family members to make connections with others having the same experiences,” she said. “The purpose is not only to support loved ones, but support the caregivers who are going through this journey as well.”
Reopell said the sessions aim to include as many as 10 participants. The sessions “meet people where they’re at” and seek to maintain the cognitive levels of people with dementia or Alzheimer’s. Movement or dance therapy is adapted for people in a wheelchair.
Therapists set up the meeting space, a large open room at the senior center, with a group table for arts and crafts activities and a second table for conversation and discussion. It’s good to have a theme “to get the ball rolling,” Reopell said. In the second half of the hour-long session, a music therapy activity is introduced.
For memory care, Reopell said, the era to choose for music choices is the time when participants were in their late teens or twenties. “Those songs trigger memories.” Sometimes people who do not speak much in the sessions will sing a song in their group.
Pictures are also a good tool for stimulating conversation, she said.
“Sometimes people just need to sit with others and listen,” Reopell said. “It’s their choice.”
“Music is incredibly powerful,” said certified dance therapist Kaitlyn Mazzilli of Abington, who also leads Memory Café sessions. “Dance therapy uses music, movement, and rhythm to help support emotional well being.”
When the therapist plays a song that’s familiar, people “come to life. They might seem to be sleeping and suddenly they’re wide awake” and able to communicate, Mazzilli said.
The dance therapist leads sessions by encouraging participants to “imagine we go to a tropical island, soak up the sun,” and talk about the sounds and sights the music and movements suggest.
Some people, she said, “get up and dance in the middle of the circle. They have that moment. They get positive feedback, and it’s joyous for the caretakers to see smiles on their faces.”
For more information about the dates of upcoming sessions or registering for the Memory Café see www.sscmusic.org/memorycafe.
Robert Knox can be contacted at rc.knox2@gmail.com.