💛 What Caregivers Need to Know About Music Therapy (AARP Article)

[Winter2025VA]

FROM THE ARTICLE.

Music and Caregiving: Hitting the Right Notes.

How music therapists help bring music and harmony into everyday caregiving.

By Paul Wynn, AARP. Published January 06, 2026.

For Jim Keylon, music remains one of the few pastimes where Alzheimer’s loosens its grip. Diagnosed in 2021, Jim, now 82, responds to music therapy with a consistency and emotional openness that his wife, Lisa Kurtz Keylon, does not usually see elsewhere. Each week, structured programs — from a music therapy class to an Alzheimer’s-focused choir called Sing for Life — offer him rare moments of connection in a disease otherwise marked by disorientation.

The response is not dramatic recall or sudden virtuosity. Instead, the changes are subtle but more durable: Jim sings along, reads music, plays simple pieces and, most importantly, engages.

USE LINK BELOW TO READ THE ARTICLE.

https://www.aarp.org/caregiving/medical/music-therapy-caregiving/