Therapy helps those suffering from dementia
By Jim Gibson, Times Colonist July 29, 2010
Jim Wiebe conducts a bell choir for the members of the music therapy program at the Oak Bay Kiwanis Pavilion. He says music helps people with dementia connect with the here and now, something many can’t do on their own.
Photograph by: Darren Stone, Times Colonist, Times Colonist
Music therapist Jim Wiebe is in full voice at the Oak Bay Kiwanis Pavilion, home to 122 residents with varying degrees of dementia.
This morning’s group consists of six people — five of whom are in wheelchairs — in a semi-circle around him. None appear to be even mouthing the words to Side by Side along with Wiebe. Two men, however, are attempting a tentative beat with their bodhran-like drums. Two of the women appear asleep, tambourines idle on their laps.
Wiebe is unfazed.
After 22 years in music therapy, he knows what counts: the small glimmers of a connection between the individual and the music.
“We’ve got to look for the small changes,” he used to tell his music therapy students at Winnipeg’s Canadian Mennonite University.
Pavilion acting director Penny Donaldson is a big fan of music therapy for those slipping away through dementia, or “the long goodbye” as she sometimes terms it.
“Even though they have dementia, there’s still an opportunity to use the brain. Music brings a lot of pleasure, a flood of happy hormones that help fight depression and make the brain work better,” she says.
Research supports music therapy, according to Wiebe. It calms agitation and stimulates the brain. It’s also a social activity.
If we just warehoused people, they’d sleep or stare out into space, he says. That’s what happens if we don’t intervene with music therapy.
The goal of music therapists with seniors is to maintain their functions at a given level for as long as possible, he says. It also improves their quality of life.
Wiebe comes three days a week to the pavilion, working with small groups such as this morning’s. Occasionally, it’s one-on-one, as he did with a former professional guitar player who became musically alive whenever handed the instrument he mastered decades ago. It helped him organize his brain, Wiebe says. Eventually he slipped too far for the guitar to bring him back even briefly in sessions with Wiebe.
Wiebe has a larger group, the Blue Bells, who use tonal bells to create music as they learn to focus and follow direction.
“They turn out a neat sound, but it’s a group activity, building a sense of community for them so that they are not alone,” Donaldson says. They also have a brief sense of accomplishment.
The program costs $26,000 annually. It’s funded by the Oak Bay Kiwanis Health Care Society, the pavilion’s owner and operator. The society raises the money in part through events such as its Greater Victoria Garden Party,
Aug. 15, at the pavilion.
Donaldson speaks longingly of expanding the music therapy program to five days, but knows the pavilion hasn’t the funding. Wiebe, employed by the Victoria Conservatory of Music, also does music therapy at two other locations offering services similar to the pavilion’s.
“I love the work,” he says.
While at the University of Kansas, he studied with one of the pioneers researching music and dementia. The last part of the brain to go is that which responds to music, Wiebe says.
Through music he tries to help the individual connect with the here and now, something many can’t do on their own.
“Music is in the moment. It cuts through the fog of dementia and they’re here with me,” Wiebe says.
Invariably, some of the lyrics the residents once knew drift up through the fog. Wiebe has an inkling what songs to try from his past work with them and from family interviews.
The rest of this morning’s sessions are given over to favourite songs. There’s no reaction when he asks one woman for her favourite. Wiebe re-phrases the question: What song did her father whistle on his way home from work?
Barely audible, she says It’s a Long Way to Tipperary. Wiebe keeps the sparse conversation alive by asking if her father was a better whistler or singer. Whistler, she responds.
Wiebe starts singing Tipperary, urging her “to sing it for dad.” He softens his voice, allowing her scratchy whisper to be heard singing.
“Way to go,” he says at the finish, later telling a visitor that what put the smile on her face were the memories of her dad.
Wiebe makes his way around the others, singing such individual favourites as Rose Marie, It Don’t Mean A Thing and Loch Lomond. He has one more favourite to sing before his session ends. It’s Que Sera Sera for the woman at the far end of the group.
Wiebe begins singing, but the woman’s eyes are closed as though soundly asleep. Suddenly, they snap open as though startled. After a pause, she begins to sing Que Sera Sera in a weak but pleasant soprano.
“Oh, you have a wonderful voice,” Wiebe tells her.
Her face lights up; not only does she sing now, she taps the beat out on her thigh.
“You’re our own Doris Day, you know,” Wiebe says.
jgibson@tc.canwest.com
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