With the Adults at the Day Center

Author: Clara Passmore

I serve at the Williams Adult Day Center with the Music Between Us program, singing and playing with the adults who have different stages of dementia. I especially love working with them because they are so sweet and loving just like your own grandparents. Recently, all the adults were in a very playful mood and were responding well to all the songs that the team had prepared for them. There are a few participants who always respond and sing and dance - the same group of ladies in the front row, and the gentleman who dances along beside them, and the woman in the back with her sassy comments. But it gives me joy to see some of the participants who normally don’t respond to the songs have a moment of connection. My colleague, Liam, played “When the Saints Go Marching In” on his saxophone and a woman in a wheelchair who rarely engages, due to her advanced dementia, began tapping her toes to the marching beat. This moment was super sweet to me, so I got down beside her on her level, and gave her an egg shaker and she responded with me as we tapped our toes and shook our egg shakers together!