anglican focus

The news site of the Anglican Church Southern Queensland: nourishing and connecting our faith community

Music that heals the soul

News

The local Rotary Club of Toowoomba kindly raised $1600 which went towards purchasing 40 wireless headsets for Anglicare Southern Queensland Symes Thorpe residents living with dementia and high needs so residents can reconnect with treasured memories through personalised playlists

Print article

Music has a way of taking you back to a time in your life. It makes you feel nostalgic and hopeful at the same time.

40 headsets were kindly donated which will be used to help residents of Symes Thorpe Residential Aged Care Home reconnect with treasured memories through personalised playlists.

The local Rotary Club of Toowoomba kindly raised $1600 which went towards purchasing 40 wireless headsets for our residents living with dementia and (or) high needs.

The headsets are personalised with each resident’s favourite music; the songs are handpicked and uploaded to the headsets by our Symes Thorpe team.

“For our residents living with dementia a lot of their memories are tied to music and evoke feelings for them. The songs allow them to re-engage with us and introduces another level that we can get back some of those memories and re-live those moments with them,” Symes Thorpe Lifestyle Lead Marllisa Beaver said.

“We’d love to thank the Rotary Club, we wouldn’t have been able to do it without them.

“It’s a great community project that we can all get behind and share a great initiative to support people with dementia.” Marllisa said.

Symes Thorpe Resident at Symes Thorpe, Maggie Wright is over the moon about the new headsets and said, “It’s nice to bring back memories of some of the old movies, hearing the music soundtrack of the Sound of Music.”

All the residents have got behind the project, with one resident, Pat McClune thoughtfully sewing bags for each of the headsets.

It’s such a wonderful initiative that has involved all of our community to make it such a success.

A big thank you to the Rotary Club of Toowoomba again for their kind donation.

First published on the Anglicare Southern Queensland website on 24 July 2020.

More News stories

Loading next article