Seniors today face difficult challenges. The majority of older adults over the age of 65 have at least one chronic illness such as heart disease, arthritis, cancer or diabetes. They often experience changes in their emotional, mental and physical wellbeing because their ability to live life as they once knew it has changed. |
Many seniors find music therapy to be very beneficial. Music therapy is an activity type of therapy that can include singing and learning how to play a new instrument. Music Therapy, as defined by The Older American’s Act of 1992, is “the use of musical or rhythmic interventions specifically selected by a music therapist to accomplish the restoration, maintenance, or improvement of social or emotional functioning, mental processing, or physical health of an older individual.” |
Those of us with older parents and grandparents are often looking for ideas of activities that we can do with our less mobile relatives. Not long ago, I gave my father and mother (who are great-grandparents now) each a glockenspiel xylophone. My father is not very musical, but he found that with some simple song patterns and a tuned eight note instrument, he could successfully play a song, and this made him happy. My mother, a long time pianist who is less mobile than she used to be, |