New music program aims to help those with memory problems

A new virtual music program at Phoenix’s Musical Instrument Museum looks to help folks who’ve developed age-related memory problems. It’s a collaboration with ASU and it’s being offered nationwide. We learned more from Dr. Katherine Palmer, Curator of Education at The Mim, and Dr. Melita Belgrave, Associate Professor of Music Therapy at ASU.

“We’ve been able to create a part museum visit, part music therapy session and we’ve done that in collaboration with Arizona State University’s music therapy program,” Palmer said.

Palmer noted that isolation at the beginning of the pandemic harmed people’s abilities to connect, and how music is one of the great ways for people to connect.

Palmer sat with Belgrave to discuss how to offer MIM services to those on a larger scale during the pandemic.

Belgrave says cognitive skills and physical skills are aided in these programs, along with psychosocial attributes.

“Feelings of usefulness, motivation for engaging with life, decreasing isolation by participating with music sometimes for the people in your community,” Belgrave said are parts of the collaboration.

There are two video collections: senior wellness and memory care collection.

Each collection focuses on five geographic categories at MIM: Africa/Middle East, Asia/Oceania, Latin America, USA and Europe.