DRwJL – Music Therapy Research Program for Sundowners

Dementia Resilience with Jill Lorentz

December 6, 2022

My guest in studio today is Sarah Thompson, a PHD student at the University of Colorado Anschutz in Denver. She is conducting a studio on music therapy and how it benefits people who are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and their care partners. She is looking for a team of 20 people for the study which begins in January. If you are interested, please contact Sarah as soon as possible to register.

To load music from Youtube, open the APP on your phone or tablet, then, on the lower right corner, you will see Library. Click library, the hit playlist. It will give you an option to create a new play list. Then hit the search magnifying glass at the top right to look for songs. When you find a song that works, touch the three dot bars on the right and it will ask if you want to save it to a playlist. TaDa! You’re done!

Sarah explains about the study:

Music processing stays intact during the Alzheimer’s disease process, even though language and other functions deteriorate.

Based on this, I developed the first caregiver training program to teach caregivers how to use music to reduce sundowning.

The whole study is remote and takes place online, via phone, and via Zoom. We are targeting home-based caregivers of individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease who have sundowning behavior. No musical skill is required

For more information, please call
Sarah Thompson at 303-817-0231