Students’ caroling serves as therapy at senior center

By Tom Tracy - Florida Catholic

WILTON MANORS | If music therapy is a proven memory and mood booster for the elderly, Christmas carols and holiday festivities may be the strongest of medicines. 

That’s what organizers of a recent Christmas caroling and holiday event at the Wilton Manors Adult Day Care Center/Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami in the Fort Lauderdale area said.

Students and faculty from Cardinal Gibbons High School in Fort Lauderdale sang Christmas carols and holiday music Dec. 11, 2024, with the elderly and their families and friends at the adult day care center.

The event was part of an ongoing music therapy program at the center, 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 movement, reminiscing” (and friendship with other seniors), said Marianela Cordoba, a certified music therapist based in Palm Beach County.

Cordoba said she has been working with the elderly for about six years in hospice daycares, independent living and nursing facilities by bringing music therapy, which takes on added depth during the Christmas season.

“It is that familiarity that people have with that music,” Cordoba said. “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 Manors are from other countries but language barriers don’t hinder the Christmas spirit, she said.

It helps both Spanish and English-speaking populations integrate better when they recognize familiar Christmas and holiday melodies and try to sing along together in another language, Cordoba 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 and dopamine, and can affect their mood and helps with memory, mood and attention span.”

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