Project Narrative:

This entire semester was dedicated to implementation and incorporating the Memory &

Music Program at the Georgia War Veterans Home Facility Milledgeville, Georgia. This

program at this Facility is used for therapy for Alzheimer/Dementia residents to help facilitate

memory recall, help control behavior patterns. Enhancing the resident quality of life with the

ablity to recall pleasant positive happy memories stimulated by personal music playlists from

each of the individuals in the program.

This Music & Memory Program was at this facility was fom the Georgia Health Care

Association’s June 2017 Music Integration for Seniors was designed to for benefiting seniors in

nursing homes and skilled nursing centers around the state of Georgia. The GCHA partnered

with the Music & Memory Organization, other of the key state holders to develop the program

now used. This program encourages the involvement of the family, the community, and the

respective staff personnel of the facilities to integrate the personal individual personalized music

playlists for positive activity sessions.

This was all made possible by a $800,000 grant that enabled the Music Integrated for

Seniors that was awarded by the Cents for Medicaid (CMS) and funded through the collection of

civil monetary penalty This provided funding for 150 skilled/long term care Centers to compete

for the funding and program

Strategies are positive and are to enhance the resident's quality of life through improved

social engagement, increased meaningful interactions - resident to resident, staff to resident, &

resident to family, lessen agitation & resistance to care, decrease staff turnover, and increase

intergenerational family & community involvement. The program includes the cost, training, &

technical support associated with Music & Memory certification, along with the equipment
necessary to implement are the components of the Music Integration Program for Seniors at

participating centers which are sent to each program facility site:

1 Laptop (with additional external speaker for group music-based activities)

2 Mountable bathing suite speakers

3 iPods, earphones, and other personal equipment for 15 residents

4 $500 iTunes Music Gift card

5 "Alive Inside" license

6 Instruments for activities

My job assignment was to do all the research on the original 14 Alzheimer/Dementia

residents. This included reviewing each of the selected resident’s medical chart review all

anxiety, depression, sedatives, psychotics, and pain medication. I had to review the resident ‘s

medical chart to look for any negative behavior patterns, view resident ‘s life history to be able to

interact positively with resident while asking quality simple yes and no response questions. I

then had to contact each resident’s family member to get a personal background informational

report to help with my resident interactions. This phone interview with the resident family

member was crucial to getting the correct music that the resident liked to stimulate the previous

positive memories with the music playlists.

From all this information gathered per individual a personal profile is established and to

fill out the Resident Impact Evaluation Report for each resident in the Music & Memory
Program. This Profile would also include a “Brief Interview for Mental Status (BIMS). There is

a resident Progress Report or personal assessment of the Music & Memory session each time to

evaluate the interaction’s effect on the resident with descriptive notations of all conversations,

physical and verbal reactions with any positive responses. The resident is assessed prior to the

Music & Memory session is started to have a baseline of the current mental state before the

session begins and recorded again afterwards to view the either positive, negative, or no visible

effect or agitation.

Providing all the Music & Memory Program at Georgia War Veterans Home was my sole

responsibility with no one to help due to employee shortages. The 5 trained staff members were

unavailable because of their primary daily job assignments. This left the Memory & Music solely

a project for this Intern to do all the pertinent research with having had no Music & Memory

formal training and having this much needed program for the Alzheimer/Dementia residents at

Georgia War Veterans Home up and fully functionally running as a compliant program on the

March 2, 2018 scheduled start date. The residents are constantly being removed from the Music

& Memory Program or added so this means each time the whole process must start all over again

for the selected new resident. This was a great opportunity for this Intern to use all my Health

Science and Nursing training to facilitate accomplishing this demanding work site assignment

that dominated a lot of my time at work and with many hours spent at home accomplishing the

tasks needed as the internet connection at the Georgia War Veterans Home was mostly none

functional in the access sites available to me unit April 24. I thoroughly have enjoyed this work

site assignment as it gives me the freedom to work virtually alone with the residents as a regular

staff member instead of an Intern whom would be mostly assisting the primary health care

provider.