Using Technology as a Means for Musical Outreach to Nursing Home Residents

Abstract

On March 15th, 2020, the coronavirus was declared a pandemic by the WHO. This marked the beginning of the disease which wreaked havoc on our social and economic livelihoods, and continues to do so today. However, the pandemic hasn’t hit everyone equally. Unsettlingly, it is our most vulnerable population – the elderly – that are most at risk. As of today, nearly 40% of Covid-19 deaths have occurred in Nursing Homes, while they amount to less than 6% of our population. Unfortunately, that is not the only epidemic sweeping our nursing homes. Loneliness, Alzheimer’s, and Dementia are rampant as many live for an extended period of time away from loved ones. In the spring, as my brother and I were isolated at home, our school held a contest in conjunction with the Positivity Project to exemplify character traits in the community by pursuing a project of choice. Our goal for this project was to partner with nursing homes so that we could play music for the seniors and frontline workers over Zoom. At last, on a warm April afternoon, I logged on to Zoom as my brother stood over my shoulder. Over the following summer months and into the fall, we did more than 2 dozen live musical meetups to diverse audiences. In fact, we got so much demand that we ended up releasing a YouTube video in addition to the live streams because of increased demand for the music and social experience, and the video ended up getting nearly 700 views in a matter of months. From Mainers to Texans to Alaskans and Hawaiians, we had the opportunity to perform for frontline workers in nursing homes and our seniors across the States, playing genres from classical to jazz to soothing church hymns. The presence of music alone can help wonders, not to mention the live human interaction associated with our project. Music can do a very special thing to stimulate the brain. Music first enters through the ears in the form of sound waves, which vibrate after striking the eardrum. After a series of steps, the vibrations reach the cochlea (the key hearing organ), which is filled with a fluid that reacts to the vibrations. As the fluid moves in accordance with the music, thousands of cells translate the fluid’s movement to electrical currents, and send the currents to the auditory cortex in the temporal lobe of the brain. At that point, information goes out to different parts of the brain, stimulating different areas for different components of music. This cross-brain stimulation is crucial in combating mental conditions such as Alzheimer’s or dementia. This is an issue of utmost importance, especially now, when thousands more seniors have died of mental conditions due to the isolation brought by the pandemic. Note: To evaluate the effectiveness of our outreach, we conducted a preliminary survey and found that we garnered an average of 9.3 on a scale of 10 for level of satisfaction.