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Christmas caroling by students provides joy for elderly

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (OSV News) — If music therapy is a proven memory and mood booster for the elderly, Christmas carols and holiday festivities may be the strongest of medicines, said organizers of such an event at an adult day care center in the Archdiocese of Miami.

Students and faculty from Cardinal Gibbons High School in Fort Lauderdale sang Christmas carols and holiday music Dec. 11 with the elderly and their family and friends at Wilton Manors Adult Day Care Center/Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami.

The event was part of an ongoing music therapy component at Wilton Manors and which includes meals and other activities to engage local seniors with quality of life enhancing programs. Participants are generally low-income, local seniors living in Broward County.

“I come to every session with a plan to work on quality of life and increasing cognitive ability, maintaining cognitive abilities, increasing movements, reminiscing,” and friendship with other seniors, Marienela Cordova, a board certified music therapist based in Palm Beach County, told Florida Catholic, Miami’s archdiocesan news outlet.

Cordova said she has been working with the elderly for about six years at hospice, day care, indepent living and nursing facilities by bringing music therapy — which takes on an added depth during the Christmas season, she said.

‘Meaningful, happy connotation’ to carols

“It is that familiarity that people have with that music,” Cordova added. “Some people connect with music when they are in their 20s, but with Christmas carols it is a little different — people have been listening to them since they were little kids and they had a meaningful, happy connotation and that helps them be willing to sing.”

And many of the clients at Wilton Manor are from other countries but language barriers don’t hinder the Christmas spirit, she said.

It helps the Spanish- and English-speaking populations to better integrate when they recognize familiar Christmas and holiday melodies and try to sing along in another language together, Cordova said.

“We find some songs they recognize, like a Spanish version of ‘Jingle Bells,’ and the same with ‘Silent Night’ and ‘Feliz Navidad,’ so they are able to recognize the melodies,” she said. “Having a time to bring back good memories can increase happy hormones like serotonin, dopamine, and can affect their mood and helps with memory, mood, and attention span.”

For seniors, she added, talking about their memories and expressing feeling is important because many of them haven’t had the opportunity to talk about how they feel “and this is bringing back happy moments from their lives.”