How music-making can help seniors combat depression
Before joining Westplay as a marketing specialist, I spent eight years working as a caregiver for seniors. During this time, I soon realized that providing seniors with quality care for their emotional, mental, and spiritual needs was far more challenging than preparing a good meal.
Nearly 40% of residents in long-term care facilities suffer from depression, and up to 70% of them suffer from anxiety.
This reality affects not only residents but also their families, and nurses and caregivers who are trying to make residents feel content (and healthy)
Finding efficient ways to improve the residents’ moods is essential for their physical and mental health, as well as the comfort of their loved ones and the quality of the staff’s work.
Music-making is a natural and powerful way to effectively boost seniors’ mood while encouraging mobility and increasing their cognitive abilities.
Multiple studies have demonstrated the benefits of music-making in older adults, such as the following:
- Reduced stress
- Lessened anxiety and depression
- Lowered blood pressure
- Decreased heart rate
- Enhanced immunological response, which enabled participants to fight viruses.
The capacity of music and musical play to simultaneously foster community, boost mood, stimulate memory, encourage movement, activate creativity and complex cognitive function, reduce anxiety and agitation, improve coordination, and much more makes it an exceptionally useful and important tool to enable an enhanced quality of life for senior citizens.
Would you like to learn more about our outdoor musical instruments for senior living?
