My Music - transform the end of life experience for patients with dementia

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Transform the end of life with your creativity and music:

Hospice of Michigan is working to launch a new volunteer program statewide and in your community and we need your help. If you are looking for a group volunteer activity please consider working with us as we aim to transform the end of life experience for patients with dementia.

The My Music Program:

The My Music Program is a volunteer based program in which a volunteer visits with a patient who has dementia and plays music on an MP3 Player to promote peace and joy. The MP3 Player is customized to the patient and loaded with songs that are from the patient's past. Research has demonstrated that dementia patients listening to music through earphones or earbuds promotes more activity in the brain and thus can actually produce a result of calming a patient, making them smile, or in some cases making them verbal.

The Volunteer Opportunity:

If you have a group that is computer saavy (knowledgable about asembling music playlists, and copy/pasting files in to a folder), creative, and likes to conduct research, this could be the assignment for you. Our volunteer groups work in teams to review case histories and to choose music for the patient from our music library.

What we need to make this all possible:

We are currently in need of donations of MP3 Players (non iPods), ear phones, and Amazon gift cards to purchase music for the library. With even the donation of a 10-20 players and earphones will make a tremendous difference.

Who to contact:

If you would like to learn more, please contact, Alison Wagner, Statewide Manager, Volunteer Program at Hospice of Michigan. 313-578-6259 or awagner@hom.org.

Dates are flexible:

The volunteer dates are completely flexible to your group's schedule. The location for the volunteer day would be in our Ada office. We offer conference room space, laptops and facilitators for the volunteer project.