Smashing our routines challenges families

CITY PARK CENTRAL – Routine has never been a friend to Betty Brinkman.
The daughter of a sharecropper, every morning she awoke before the rooster when Mississippi’s summer air was still cool. To break the routine wrought by picking cotton and vegetables, she would escape to the sanctuary of the creek a few skips from her house.
Brinkman spent her afternoons fighting with her redheaded brother although she knew she’d never win, she was a tomboy, therefore duty-sworn to show her five brothers she was as tough as they were.
At age 72, Brinkman no longer lives in a town the size of a teacup and instead finds her home at Life Care Center at Wells Crossing in Orange Park. Those stubborn routine-busting personality traits of hers remain, only she’s switched the creek for live music.
Friday entertainment is a joy shared among many of the residents of the center. Last Friday, Dan Lopes propped his speakers up and strummed on his acoustic guitar while the residents clapped. Under the table, however, the music acts as therapy for the residents and dredges up old memories huddled around radios.
“I love music, all kinds,” Brinkman said. “[Dan] got up there this morning and said ‘hello, I’m Johnny Cash,’ that’s just the way Johnny Cash would introduce himself.”
Lopes has worked the Life Care Center venue for six years, twice as long as Brinkman has been a resident. His set is comprised solely of songs intended to illicit nostalgia in everyone in the room, old blues, rock-and-roll and even old war songs.
“When you see these people looking at you and supposedly their mind and memory is going, they look at you with a big old smile and their eyes open up and they start doing the air guitar motion – they remember, they know – it’s because of the music,” Lopes said. “I just think that that is just a wonderful thing for anybody.”
Lopes sees the effect music has on the residents of the nursing center as they tap their feet, shake their legs and, if they can, get up and dance. It’s something he wished he could do for his grandfather who, while coherent, was rendered immobile after a severe stroke.
“He needed more than just assisted living, he needed care full-time, whether it be just giving him love or talking to him, he never had that,” Lopes said. “I wish I was at that point where I could bring him back and have him enjoy that.”
Lopes and Brinkman share a common bond in that respect. A stroke in 2010 interfered with the left side of her body and caused her left leg to constantly want to ‘stick straight up’ as she explained. She, because of that, cannot dance without help. However, she said, Lopes is so energetic that she can’t help but swing her legs while he plays.
Music therapy is common among many assisted living facilities across the nation. As Lopes said, there’s a reason for that. Music awakens memories in even incoherent residents who, sometimes, were even in comatose states.
Lopes experienced a similar situation at a show three years ago. An unresponsive resident had not lifted her head or spoken since he’d known her. During a blues song, however, she finally responded.
“She was basically comatose, she was incoherent, she would just lay in her chair with her head down and her eyes closed,” Lopes said. “That lady not only opened up her eyes and started sitting up, she actually got out of her chair and started singing. She started singing and she had a fabulous voice. She had a nephew with her and two nurses and they all had tears in their eyes, they didn’t know that she could do that.”
As soon as the song ended, however, the Louisiana blues singer would stop shaking her hips and return to her unresponsive state inside of her chair until the next blues song came on.
Stories like this aren’t uncommon, according to Shay Gilland, the activities director of Life Care Center.
“I’ve found, in my time of being here, that it works better for lower functioning groups like our dementia groups,” Gilland said. “Music is really the universal language. I find that music, pets and babies, we see a lot of that, that people are really attracted to those three things.”
Brinkman stays after the show and chats with Lopes from her wheelchair while he packs up his equipment for the day. Mostly they chat about the show, sometimes about Johnny Cash, other times about Elvis. The two won’t see each other until next week. Brinkman will live out her routine for the rest of the week until Lopes comes back and gives her a reason to shake.
“It’s a blessing to see these people with a smile on their faces,” Lopes said. “If you put a smile on their faces for one hour then it’s a great feeling, especially for me, because now they’ve become my family over 11 years.”