The Neighborhoods at Brookview Becomes Music & Memory Certified

  • January 22, 2019

Darlene Carpenter, resident at The Neighborhoods at Brookview, listens to her personal playlist of 50s and 60s music as she works on her sewing. The Neighborhoods is now one of 55 nursing homes in South Dakota to become Music & Memory® Certified, a therapeutic program that brings residents pleasure, improves mood and reduces anxiety. The program has also been proven to help improve dementia.
Darlene Carpenter, resident at The Neighborhoods at Brookview, listens to her personal playlist of 50s and 60s music as she works on her sewing. The Neighborhoods is now one of 55 nursing homes in South Dakota to become Music & Memory® Certified, a therapeutic program that brings residents pleasure, improves mood and reduces anxiety. The program has also been proven to help improve dementia.

The Neighborhoods at Brookview is one of 55 South Dakota nursing homes to recently become a Music & Memory® Certified Care Organization. Music & Memory helps to improve dementia and person-centered care using personalized music experiences.

“Personalized therapeutic music has been shown to improve behavior, reduce depressive symptoms and help residents with dementia to reconnect with others,” said Administrator Jason Hanssen. “It’s amazing how just creating a playlist for a resident and allowing them to listen to music on an iPod can have such a tremendous impact.”

Benefits of the Music & Memory program include:

  • Bringing pleasure and joy
  • Increasing appetite, mood, communication and personal connections
  • Reducing anxiety, distress and falls
  • Resulting decline in antipsychotic medication use and hospital readmissions
  • Reducing resistance to care and staff injury during care
  • Strengthening bonds between staff, family and residents

The Neighborhoods and other nursing home facilities across the state received training and equipment to become Music & Memory certified at no charge thanks to a grant from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The South Dakota Foundation for Medical Care spearheaded the South Dakota Music & Memory program in collaboration with the South Dakota Association of Healthcare Organizations, South Dakota Health Care Association, Great Plains Quality Innovation Network, South Dakota Department of Health and South Dakota Department of Human Services.

The Neighborhoods at Brookview nursing home offers short and long-term care to residents. The facility embraces the household model of care which aims to create a homelike, social setting for residents. Staff incorporates the five person-directed values in care: Choice, Dignity, Respect, Self-Determination and Purposeful Living. For more information, please visit www.brookingshealth.org/Neighborhoods.

About Brookings Health System

Brookings Health System, located in Brookings, South Dakota, includes the 49-bed Brookings Hospital, the 79-bed The Neighborhoods at Brookview nursing home, Brookhaven Estates senior living apartments, Yorkshire Eye Clinic, and medical clinics in Arlington, White and Volga, South Dakota. It is a non-profit, city-owned facility that offers the community a full range of inpatient, outpatient, surgical and extended care services. The emergency room is staffed 24 hours a day and provides around the clock patient needs ranging from minor injuries to life threatening crises. For more information about the services offered at Brookings Health System, please call (605) 696-9000 or visit us on the Web at brookingshealth.org.