The Claremore Veterans Center became a certified Music and Memory Facility 20 months ago. Our staff and volunteers have interviewed residents and families and created personalized music playlists for those veterans – songs and tunes from their past that create a sense of familiarity, peace and comfort.
With your help:
- Music brings smiles and joy to 265 veterans at any time on any day
- our music library has grown to over 11 thousand songs… (Yes…you read that right…11 THOUSAND songs!)
- Over 200 of our staff and volunteers have been trained in the benefits and use of this program with our veterans…(and we continue to train all new orientees)
Our ongoing research and evaluation of this program shows consistent results (from the website: https://musicandmemory.org/ )
- Participants are happier and more social.
- Relationships among staff, participants and family deepen.
- Everyone benefits from a calmer, more supportive social environment.
- Staff regain valuable time previously lost to behavior management issues.
- There is growing evidence that a personalized music program gives professionals one more tool in their effort to reduce reliance on anti-psychotic medications.
Some of our friends have mentioned that they know of folks who have old iPod Shuffles in a drawer that they are no longer using….our program would gladly put them to good use! Our goal is to have all veterans here at the center with an MP3 by 2019. With continued use, we can anticipate a loss of approx. 2 – 5 players per month (some get laundered, some are mistakenly sent home when the veteran leaves us, some get broken).
