MUSIC & MEMORY® is a non-profit organization that helps individuals with a wide range of cognitive and physical conditions to engage with the world, ease pain, and reclaim their humanity through the use of personalized music playlists.
https://musicandmemory.org/about/mission-and-vision/
The South Dakota Foundation for Medical Care (SDFMC) helps to train nursing home staff, as well as family caregivers to create, provide, and manage personalized playlists using digital music players. Those struggling with Alzheimer’s, dementia, and other cognitive and physical challenges are able to reconnect with the world through music-inspired memories. The National MUSIC & MEMORY® program aims to make this form of personalized therapeutic music a standard of care throughout the health care industry. SDFMC helps by providing access and education, and by creating a network of MUSIC & MEMORY® Certified organizations.
Evidence-Based Music Therapy
Grounded in research about how brains respond to music, the MUSIC & MEMORY® program engages residents using the therapeutic potential of music to tap into deep memories and reconnect with the world. Residents may have scheduled music time throughout the week or experience music as a method to decrease agitation or anxiety and to elicit feelings of well-being. Additional proven benefits include increases in cooperation, attention, and appetite. Along with enhanced resident engagement and socialization, nursing facilities see the program as a valuable tool for reducing falls, resistance to care and the use of anti-psychotic medication.
Music & Memory’s personalized music program has been field-tested in thousands of care settings throughout the US and around the world. As a MUSIC & MEMORY® Certified Care Organization, you will benefit from best practices training, peer-to-peer advice and support, and a wealth of resources — from policies and procedures to evaluation tools and forms.
Program Development Support:
- Introduce Music & Memory to those in your care and their families.
- Develop personalized playlists for each individual participant
- Create and maintain an easy-to-search iTunes music library
- Mange equipment security and hygiene
- Scale your program across your organization
- Create quality initiatives based on personalized music
- Use assessment tools to improve your program
- Build a community constituency that supports your efforts and helps you to grow your program
Benefits for Program Participants
And that is just for starters! As a member of our South Dakota Music & Memory Care Community, you’ll have access to all the latest training programs, research, support calls, marketing materials and more.
Facilities that partner with SDFMC to implement the MUSIC & MEMORY® program will receive at NO COST.
- Music and Memory training for a core group of staff
- Equipment (music device, headphones, jacks, laptop computer, playlist starter music) for 15 residents
- Technical assistance during program implementation through August 2022
- Conference scholarships for two staff attendees per year for two years
- In-depth training for caregivers to introduce tablets to your communities
Contact Jess Danko at Jess.Danko@sdfmc.org for more information.