'Music Memory Program' In Oswego Connects Teens and Seniors

OSWEGO, IL — The Lighthouse Adult Stay Respite Program, part of the Oswego Senior Center, aids elderly members of the community struggling with physical disability and cognitive decline. As part of its mission, it recently partnered with a 501(c)(3) nonprofit initiative - the "Music and Memory Program" -to help improve local seniors' quality of life through music and social interaction.

"We're piloting it now," Lighthouse Coordinator Kathy Perez, MSW, said. "We started it Dec. 4."

The local program begins with Chip Staley, a retired music educator. Staley trained student volunteers from Yorkville High School on music and conducting interviews, Perez said. These students then sat down with a number of Lighthouse's clients - all except those that were out sick - and interviewed them about their life stories and tastes in music. Based on these conversations, the students will create personalized soundtracks for the elderly interviewees, and download them into digital headphone sets that Music and Memory will provide. On Monday, Dec. 16, the teens will return the newly-personalized headphones to their assigned seniors, who will be able to keep them free of charge.

Studies from multiple sources have shown that music can help alleviate the stress, stimulate memory retention and lift the moods of seniors suffering from Alzheimer's and other age-related cognitive diseases. This is the first time Lighthouse has partnered with the Music and Memory Program, and Perez said that if the procedure proves beneficial to Lighthouse seniors, the Senior Center would try to expand on it. Already, additional senior interviewees are being sought from the surrounding area.

"We were thinking of grabbing five more people from the community," Perez said. "I don't have specific dates, but I was thinking for sometime in January."