Let's get excited fun, therapeutic breaks for residents.

Alan Bayowski still remembers the phone call to his radio station, WMKV FM 89.3, after Thanksgiving several years ago. The caller, an elderly man, was very pleased. "My wife just sang to one of your songs," he said. "And then she raised a spoon and fed herself."

The man's wife had later-stage Alzheimer's and had pretty much withdrawn from reality, to the point where her husband had to regularly feed her. On this day, however, she came back long enough to sing a few lines with the radio, take a bite of food, and sing a little bit more before sinking away again.

"It's almost like magic," said Bayowksi, who founded and manages the station at Maple Knoll Village in Cincinnati, the only FM station in the country licensed to a retirement community. "Being able to elicit that in a person's life is phenomenal."

Helen Troyer agreed with his sentiments. She's seen the sparkle in residents' eyes when her troupe of clowns makes its regular appearances at area nursing homes. Those who were quiet and disconnected from the world suddenly act like life is important again, smiling, cheering, clapping. "It's so important for them to have moments like this," Troyer said. "They don't get many laughs otherwise, poor souls."

Bayowski, Troyer and others explained that, as a form of therapy, entertainment can be a powerful tool. Various studies document improvement in the dementia-afflicted when musical therapy is applied, while the mere ability to laugh does wonders at relieving depression or boredom in people. And it's not hard to find creative ways to make your environment happier for your residents.

Play it again, Sam

When Maple Knoll Village residents want to feel good, they only have to flip on the radio. Or, they can walk down the hall to the WMKV offices, the on-site radio station that broadcasts the music they grew up listening to, danced to at their weddings or even retired with it playing in the background.

Each week the 1,000-watt station beams out to 30,000 listeners in the Cincinnati area and another 60,000 worldwide via the Internet. It's "The Way Radio is Meant to Be," according to WMKV's motto.

Only four of the station's 129 staff members are employees; the rest are volunteers from the facility or the Cincinnati area, Bayowski said. "About 110 of our 125 volunteers are over age 60, and 15 to 20 are from (Maple Knoll)," he said. "They're very active here in a variety of ways."

Some serve as on-air hosts, while others handle behind-the-scenes duties, acting as engineers, cataloging the station's collection of 100,000-plus records from the 1920s to the early 1960s, or working the front desk, Bayowski said.

A typical example is resident Morden Grant, who moved to Maple Knoll because of his interest in music and love of the radio station. Now he's a deejay with his own one-hour show every Friday, according to Bayowski.

The station's on-air library, converted from vinyl to CD, offers an immense music selection -there are more than 300 songs by Frank Sinatra and 350 from Bing Crosby, for example. But WMKV broadcasts hour-long shows on topics such as family care-giving, grandparenting, senior health, and estate planning.

Bayowski said the station, realizing that its age 60-plus audience could have WM KV on all day, wants to be a friend or companion to the listener. The station takes requests in addition to using a loose song-playing format.

"There's a tremendous hole in the age 60-plus market," Bayowski said. "When you get up to this age, the music you grew up listening to is nowhere to be found. Now our listeners--our residents--can tune in to music that is very familiar to them, that they grew up on and love--but they aren't hearing the same 10 songs over and over again."

Familiarity extends beyond the music. A dozen of the station's show hosts are retired radio personalities with more than 50 years experience each behind the microphone. "Our listeners hear on the air the people they grew up listening to," Bayowski said. "They're able to follow those people through their careers to one more station."

The music follows the residents, too. Bayowski said it's not uncommon to hear listeners remark how a song took them back to their childhood, World War II, their marriage or their children's upbringing. "Music is something that keeps people very connected to their personality, because so often that music is associated with individuals or events that have meaning to them, Bayowski said. "To be able to capture that music and have it for the listener to really enjoy is truly wonderful."

All jazzed up

While WMKV does its melodic memory-making over the airwaves, Sterling Glen of Great Neck opts for the live performance.

Every Tuesday night, the New York City-based assisted living facility treats its residents to an informal jam session by some of the area's more notable jazz musicians. While it's merely a stay-in-shape musical effort by the performers, it's also a trip down memory lane for everyone involved.

According to Kathy Johannsen, Sterling Glen's executive director, the musicians often provide little vignettes prior to playing a tune in front of the facility's elder audience.

It's usually along the lines of "Do you remember 25 years ago, when we first performed this piece?" For the audience, usually close to 100 members strong, the answer is usually 'Yes.'

"These gentlemen and ladies (who play) are well-known and respected, they love what they do, and they love to talk about it," Johannsen said. "It's almost an education for the residents as well as the performers. It's great for both parties, because the musicians love to show off, and the residents love to enjoy their performances."

The musicians are treated to dinner at the facility, Johannsen said. Otherwise, it's a totally volunteer program.

Sterling Glen offers several other music-themed activities for its residents, ranging from a monthly karaoke show to a Valentine's Day program known as "One Piano, Four Hands," where two concert pianists simultaneously play the same piano. Debra Pino, the facility's activities director, said these events bring out the best in the residents.

"Music is wonderful for the seniors," Pino said. "It brings back so many memories of their long lives--special people they were with or things they were doing. Even residents who can't remember the words are happily humming along."

Musical cares

Sterling Glen residents aren't the only ones humming. Musical vocal sounds are a regular routine for Linda Grant De Pauw and her Little Ol' Ladies From Pasadena, a barbershop quartet of elderly women that makes the rounds at senior centers and long term care facilities in and around Pasadena, Md.

De Pauw, the group's leader and teacher, said the Little Ol' Ladies--who range from 65 to mid-70s in age--typically perform for several dozen to several hundred people, most of whom are at least as old as the singers. They perform one show per month "being that we are, after all, little old ladies," she said.

The shows have two parts. The group opens with what they call "The Old-Time Grandmas' Songs," which are songs the singers learned from their grandparents, such as "Down By the Old Mill Stream," and "When You Were a Tulip." "In the second segment--'Now We Are the Grandmas,' we sing somewhat newer tunes--ones that are only about 50 years old," De Pauw said. "Songs like 'Lollipop,' 'All Have to Do is Dream,' and 'Moon glow.' This way we're offering something for everyone."

Barbershop is the only form of Western music based on harmonic overtones, which have a "proven" therapeutic value, De Pauw said. "What we say is it makes us feel good," she said. "It makes us tingle when we ring a chord."

Facility residents, even those dimmed by dementia, take an interest in the Little Ol' Ladies' four-part efforts, according to De Pauw. "We've seen it where someone appears to be asleep, head drooping, and then you see their foot start tapping," she said. "Music, especially the rhythm, gets to a part of the brain that is very basic--the part at the base of the skull. No matter what else goes in a person, the attraction of music stays."

Clowning around

While music can work wonders in residents, sometimes laughter truly is the best medicine. For that, facilities in and around Michigan City, Ind., call an expert like Troyer, who is a real clown. Seriously.

Troyer, president of the Michiana Clowns--35 people who live to put on makeup, button noses and wild wigs to gain a few laughs and smiles--said nursing home residents are almost like kids again whenever the group makes an appearance. "They're so much fun to work with," Troyer said. "When their activity director lets them know we're going to be there, we always know we're going to have a full house."

From the occasional debates within the audience over how long they should stay--Troyer said shows are usually an hour long during the day--to the residents attending the shows decked out in clown gear, waiting for the group's performance, it's always a memorable time for everyone involved, according to Troyer.

She noted that sometimes residents aren't ready for the fun to end. After one performance, during which the Michiana Clowns will hold a business meeting in the facility dining room, a resident wandered in to join in on the discussion.

"He voted on a couple things with us," Troyer recalled. "Pretty soon, we heard a facility nurse calling for him ... she pops her head in, and he tells her, 'Will you just leave? We're having a meeting!'"

Clowning in general is a big business in the United States, according to Arnie Swensen, president of Caring Clowns: the Foundation for Therapeutic Clowning in Carefree, Ariz. Long term care facilities are often a recipient of these goofy but well-meaning individuals' services. "There is a growing presence of caring clowns throughout the world," said Swensen, a.k.a. Dr. Laffingiggl. "It's somewhat fragmented, but a few of us are trying to change that."

Speaking of change ...

Residents at the William Osier Health Centre didn't need to dig into their pockets as they played the facility's slot machine. All they needed was the tips of their fingers.

The 36-bed facility, which specializes in rehab treatment for victims of strokes and other neurological disorders, brought in a new Touch2Play gaming system to help them regain hand-eye coordination, according to Chris Richard, a certified therapeutic recreational specialist at the Georgetown, Ont., center. "It definitely helped with their cognitive functioning," Richard said. "And they definitely enjoyed playing the games."

Under the system, when residents want to play a game, they merely touch a small computer screen that can be placed on a table in front of them. The $3,500 unit features more than 100 games, ranging from the traditional--such as solitaire, gin rummy, chess, and checkers--to sports items such as golf, tennis, bowling and football, according to Taylor Simms-Brown, Touch2Play's director of sales in Collingwood, Ont.

There are also games designed to help with mental acuity, such as number sequencing, trivia and crosswords.

"This creates an unsupervised form of entertainment that somebody can now enjoy by themselves," Simms-Brown said.

"They can play against the computer or a roommate. From the administrator's point of view, there's nothing to clean up. There's nothing to it besides a plug that goes into the wall."

In addition to providing residents vital rehabilitative exercises, Richard said the unit was also popular because of its simplicity. "Even older patients in their 70s or 80s can use this," he said. "If anything, once we introduced this to the patients, they wanted to use the unit every day. They know a good thing when they see it."