Thank you for the music
Your old iPods will help care home residents
Paisley Rotary Club has launched an appeal that will help make life better for dementia sufferers.
Its members are asking people to look out their old iPods and hand them in to a special collection point at the YMCA in the High Street.
The music systems will then be loaded with music and given to people with dementia as part of Playlist for Life, a scheme that harnesses the power of music as a way of improving the lives of those with the condition.
Paisley Rotary Club has teamed up with its Greenock counterpart for the appeal, and the hope is people will have old iPods that they will look out and hand over.
Douglas Paxton, treasurer and past president of Paisley Rotary Club, told the Paisley Daily Express: “The Rotary Clubs of Paisley and Greenock are working with the health and social care and music students at West College Scotland to create a Playlist for Life for people with dementia in our local care homes.”
Music that dementia sufferers have enjoyed in their youth or younger days has been proved to be a source of comfort to them, and can help alleviate their condition and make them happier.
“People like to remember old songs – it gives them peace of mind,” Douglas added.
“The idea about the iPods came from the Greenock club, and we thought this is a good idea – why don’t we work in conjunction with them?”
The Playlist for Life organisation says personal music can improve life not just for people with dementia, but also their families and carers.
It wants to use the power of music to help so that if someone develops dementia, they or their loved ones already know that music can be a lifeline.
As revealed in the Paisley Daily Express, broadcaster Sally Magnusson is the chairman and founder of Playlist for Life.
And Erskine resident Jessie Adams, 82, was one of the first to try out the new service at the home for ex- servicemen and women.
Erskine was awarded a grant from the Armed Forces Covenant Fund for a six-month pilot project of Playlist for Life.
Sally also wrote movingly about her late mother Mamie’s life with dementia in Where Memories Go: Why Dementia Changes Everything.
If you have an old iPod, then simply drop it in at the YMCA, 39 High Street, Paisley.