How Music Therapy Can Enhance Quality of Life in Dementia Care with Alexis Baker

Hello everyone. I'm especially excited about today's interview with Alexis Baker. I have a special interest in creative work and healing, so I'm really looking forward to our conversation today, which is going to be about music and therapy and the role that it plays in all of our lives. And I'd like to have our guest, Alexis Baker, introduce herself now a little bit by telling us what is her background. What's your background, Alexis, and how did you become a music therapist?

Well, first I want to say hello, hi, Deborah. It's good to see you today. Thank you for having me on your show. And yes, I love that question, because to me, it's always so interesting to find out from people how they got to where they are today, like, what were the what were the pieces of their story that came together to to make up who they are today? So it's a few things. For me, I grew up in a musical family with quotes, musical family, because I believe every family and every person is musical in some way, but it was a place where music was highly supported. So my parents wanted all of us to have a solid musical foundation, so they started us on each of my siblings and I on piano lessons from a young age. I picked up guitar at the age of 10 and fell in love with it, and I've been playing guitar ever since then. We also had a family band. At one point, my siblings and I came together. My sister was writing songs, and we started performing in coffee shops in the area. My three siblings and I as a family band. That was a fun time. So music has always been there. In addition to all of that, I've I've always known I wanted to do something that involved helping people. So I, you know, thought about counseling and psychology and nursing and all of that, but really wanted to do something that involved music so when I learned about music therapy at the age of 16, it immediately grabbed my attention. It just really made sense to me, and I started looking into it and researching how to become a music therapist. And then that's the path i i went down. Did all of completed all of the coursework and training and 1200 clinical training hours, and then took the board certification exam.

Wow, tremendous. Almost a straight line path, but with a lot of wonderful branches hanging off of it, where you could have become a performer, you could have done a lot of different things, and yet the the therapy was part of it for you. I know I started taking piano lessons when I was five, just around the time I started to read, and music has always been part of my life. So I'm especially interested in in your story and how, how it developed. I decided not to go into a musical performance career, but it's always been there for me. And music can benefit people in a lot of different ways, and you have a very special focus. And I had the privilege of listening to one of your online programs the other day. So could you tell us a bit about how music benefits people who are living with dementia?

Yeah, so that that is my focus as a music therapist, is serving older adults living with dementia, and music is just so beneficial in a myriad of ways. So music is one of the few things in life that activates every part of our brain because of all the different elements. It incorporates, pitch, timbre, tone, melody, harmony, lyrics, all of the different element elements involved in music. It's processed in multiple areas of the brain. So that's at like a physiological level with how it affects the brain. But then you bring in mood and emotion and and social connection and physical movement, and all the different areas and parts of our being that music can effect change in and support, support, positive connections, positive impact. So music brings people together. Music is a natural motivator for movement. Music is cognitively engaging in many different ways with dementia. Specifically, it can help bring up past memories. It can help tap. Up into a person's long term memory and really support reminiscence and just really draw them out. With dementia, it's a progressive condition, so as the brain breaks down, it's almost like there's holes in the brain and the processes start to break down. But music can be kind of a backdoor access to memories at times, and it can even help create new new neural pathways in the brain. So, I mean, I could go on and on about it, but I'm sure you get the idea about how, how music can affect us.

I think that that's so true. I was talking to a friend the other day whose mother is in a dementia care program, and she went to a music session, and her this friend was so amazed by her hearing her mother speak about memories she hadn't mentioned for years, because it really, apparently, does activate those centers of the brain, and keeping the connections alive is the one way we have really to stay in touch with people who are suffering with dementia. So so that's an enormous contribution to people who are caregiving to try to keep that, that connection alive, because I think that's one of the more disheartening things about it, that we start losing connection with our person, but through song, we might be able to maintain it for a lot longer.

Absolutely, communication can become a real challenge with dementia, and I've seen countless times in my work how music supports communication, like, for example, a person has lost the ability to speak for the most part, but they're still able to sing, and they can be expressive through song, and they can connect with their loved one through music. So it is a beautiful thing

reading about Tony Bennett being able to recall all of the lyrics to his songs, but wasn't any longer conversing with people, and it's just so remarkable that that persists long after people are losing other capabilities. So it's lovely to have people who are trying to help sustain it. Now, one of the interesting things I know that you've also mentioned is that caregivers can use music for themselves, and I know I love to sing. And when I've been a caregiver, I often sing to myself in moments when it was pretty quiet and there was not much else happening. So I know it was sustaining to me, and hearing it was still very important. So could you tell me a little bit more about how caregivers can use music?

Yes, definitely one thing I'm very passionate about as a music therapist is equipping caregivers to use music themselves, not just to help support their loved one, but also to support themselves. And that can be done in a lot of different ways. I recently contributed to a book for caregivers, called the caregivers advocate, and my chapter in the book was all about seven ways to infuse music into dementia caregiving, and while it's intended for use with your loved one or your care recipient, sometimes using music that way. The byproduct is it helps the caregiver. It can if, if you're using music to help deal with challenging behaviors, that can help ease stress for the caregiver. So that's one way, but also as a as an expressive outlet, if, if not everyone plays an instrument, but if you happen to play an instrument, I encourage caregivers to, I know it's difficult, but to take some time for themselves, self care and be expressive through their instrument or sing. That that can be another way. So it's it's a lot of simple things that we often forget and just need to be reminded of. One of my go to tips and ideas is to have a few different playlists of your preferred music ready to go, like make them ahead of time so that you can just hit play when you are desperate for for something to help you if, if you're needing some energy, music can help boost your energy. It can help boost your mood. It can help you feel better emotionally, if you're feeling down or sad or depressed or sometimes music helps us release. It can be cathartic. Maybe there's some pent up feelings or emotions that are just weighing on you, and there's a particular song or two that just have always helped you. To release in that way. Dancing is great, dancing to music, and that can be done alone with others or with your your loved one or care recipient. So there's, there's some ideas for you, simple ways to get started,

those are all great. Can you mention the name of the book again and where we could find it? Yeah, when you contributed to Yes, I

have it here. So for anyone watching this interview, it's called the caregivers advocate, a complete guide to support and resources. And it was 21 different authors who all came together, and each contributed a chapter on a different topic to support caregivers in various ways. So it's 21 different chapters. It's available on Amazon. It's also available on my website, and it's just a wonderful, resource. Every chapter is so valuable in its own, its own way. And I was, yeah, I was just really happy to be a part of such a collaborative project to support caregivers. Yeah, I

imagine there are quite a few chapters that would be fascinating to read. So I will certainly be looking for that myself. I remember early in my teaching career, many, many moons ago, one of my first jobs was to teach music to disable emotionally disabled children, and there were various reasons why their attention span was not good enough, and our goal was mainly to get the children to be able to clap in time to what we were singing and playing. And I, at that point, I had shifted over to guitar so that that too is my my instrument. And I remember the first time that it worked that I was able to communicate that well or reach people to produce that clap, which seems like a small thing, but the act of engaging with what is going on around you and paying attention is so powerful, and I'm not sure everyone realizes how much we have lost when we can't do those types of things. So it's wonderful to think about this in a dementia care setting, and also for the caregiver, I think sometimes the the room is too quiet, and if we can add music to that environment, it really will boost your mood or give you some, some other way to to think about things that might not have been there before. So that that playlist idea that you mentioned is really a good one. So this is a wonderful life affirming and community sharing activity that you're engaged in. Could you talk a bit more about the why? Why do you do this work?

For me, it starts with how I've experienced music in my life from a young age, experience, experiencing how it brought my family together, experiencing how it helped me process different difficult times, difficult emotions. I feel like music has always been there for me. It's kind of like a friend that you can't see but you can, you can feel it and experience it. I like to say music is like a vitamin, and a little bit every day does wonders to nourish the body, mind and soul. So for myself, I've used music therapeutically, even before I was a music therapist, not really fully understanding how it was helping me. But then when I was in school, got to really dive into that, and it all just like clicked and made sense. Yeah, go ahead,

that's okay. I was going to say that. That is such a lovely story, so and you wanted to amplify. So what else were you going to say? Yeah,

so my personal experience, and then also seeing how music affects others. And then with the dementia piece, my grandmother had Alzheimer's disease. She was diagnosed when I was a kid, and she passed away when I was 16 years old, and that was really impactful for me. She She was my first real exposure to dementia, and I I saw how difficult of a of a condition it is, but also she loved music herself, and it benefited her. And yeah, I've always, I've always kind of loved older adults, and I think a lot of people, the general public, we tend to forget that population, and I love just being able to show up for them and and serve them, and then, especially with dementia. Yeah. Because a lot of times people don't know how to interact with people living with dementia. And yeah, so it's, I don't know. It's a lot of different things coming together.

Yes, I can see that now i i was the program I was listening to the other day was a focus on Johnny Cash's music. So I was wondering how you come up with your topics. Do you have a feedback group that makes suggestions to you, or have you had some more success with certain decades of music or certain artists than others?

Great question. A lot of it is based on just years of experience working as a music therapist and and getting to know people, either individuals or groups of people, and, yeah, learning what kind of music they enjoy, what kind of MUSIC They prefer, I like to express creatively through my work. So sometimes the theme based sessions are just like I have a songs that are blue session, and it's just songs that have the word blue and the the song title, and that's the theme. That's what brings a collection of songs together. So just having fun with music, there is a general rule of thumb with within music therapy and music based approaches that people's This is, in general, people's preferences are based on the music that was popular during the time they were in their teens, 20s and 30s. So you can kind of do the calculation and go back a few decades to come up with that time frame, and just pull music from from that period of time what was popular, as far as genres and styles and and and singers, so

helpful to know, yeah, it's helpful to know the age of the person or people that you're working with. Yeah. Now I remember, after my mother passed away, my dad had kind of slipped into a pretty big depression, and in the grieving process, it was immediately after, and I guess it was New Year's Eve, and we found the Glenn Miller story, and that was the decade of his most favorite music. And I thought, Oh, this night cheer him up. But of course, it also evoked some of the sadder memories of losing my mother and I, I really found myself at a loss for what to do, but I thought maybe it's good to live the emotions through the music of it, rather than ruminating somewhere in the dark and not not expressing them, but, but I suppose there's a border where sometimes music may help a person go too far into their memories, and that may not come up in it in a single hour, or if People are very careful about it, but, but I would imagine that there, there aren't only good memories associated with music. So so it could go both ways. Yes,

you bring up a very good point, and it's important to be mindful of the effect music can have in the opposite direction of a negative emotion or feeling negative memories music can be tied to memories that people don't necessarily want to recall, and so it is important, and that is part of what I do as a music therapist, is seeing how they're responding in the moment. And I've had clients who just sob to music and it there's a point where it can be good, because it can be a release, and music provides a safe space, a container, if you will, to be expressive. So yes, definitely want to see like, is it? Is it causing harm? Is it going too far? But it could be good, because it could be that cathartic experience that's that's needed to just sit in those difficult feelings and process, but process through music.

Yeah, I think a lot of arts work will help us to or experience of art will help us to get to that place. Certainly, we may cry at the end of a movie or the end of a novel, and that may be mixed feelings too, but having no access to your feelings is decidedly worse, as far as I can tell. So I think sometimes we have to live with with the more painful expression of feelings in order to get a person to a better place. So, so, and I guess any kind of therapy could evoke. That that experience so music would be no different.

Yeah.

So can you tell us? I know that your your programs are somewhat available online, and where you are locally, so people will understand how to find you,

of course. So I am based in Portland, Oregon, and for many, many years, I was a traveling music therapist, and I would drive around to all of my clients, memory care communities, adult group homes, individuals living in their own home. And then COVID happened, and I wasn't able to do any in person visits for quite a while, it was a good chunk of time. So in response to COVID during that time, I created an online music program. We call it our virtual music engagement program, and it's not formal music therapy, though. It is created by myself a music therapist, so it is very intentionally created and not not just a random music program. So my husband is a professional videographer, and we decided to combine our skills in that time, and he began filming me, and we launched this program with just four videos. We call them therapeutic music sessions. So they are pre recorded video based, and we had no idea what we're doing, but we launched to my clients at the time, and many of them began using it, and we were getting great feedback on it, so we just kept going with it, and four years later, we've built up a video library of over 300 therapeutic music sessions that are accessible on demand, available 24/7, so it's really what it is, is an alternative to formal Music Therapy. If people are there's only 10,000 music therapists in the US, so there's not enough to go around to serve all of the needs for music therapy, and it can be difficult to access music therapy geographically. It can be a cost prohibitive service. So part of my mission is to provide an alternative that's high quality, accessible and affordable, and so that's what this program is. And then we also offer monthly free live sessions over zoom, and these are open and available to everyone. I think that's the one you joined, and they're a lot of fun. We have people join from all over the country and even internationally. Now, we had a few people from Canada and Scotland recently. So that's the bulk of what I'm doing as a music therapist. I do still work in person with clients, but my my work is limited with that, as I'm putting most of my focus into growing this new online platform, that that I believe, well, the feedback we've gotten is that it's valuable and needed, and it's and it's filling a need for family caregivers, for memory care communities, and so our our main website is BridgetownMT.com , M, as in music, T, as in therapy dot com, and we have a Contact Us button on there, and that's just a great way to get more info and get in touch with us.

That is fantastic. I was thinking of how many nursing homes or dementia care programs could use this service to save them some some time and recruiting of specialists in the area. So I think that's just wonderful, and I hope that more people will join you in this effort, certainly highly worthy one. And I'm looking forward to keeping in touch with you and your programs as I'm not getting any younger myself, and certainly music, I hope, will always be a part of my life, and I know it will be of yours. So I want to thank you Alexis Baker for doing this wonderful interview with us at the share giving secret today, and I'm looking forward to keeping in touch with you and hearing how this program develops. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Deborah, this has been wonderful.