He helps Alzheimer’s patients remember
Jay McDaniel is best known as an author and educator at Hendrix College, but he’s also a musician who uses his talents to brighten the lives of elderly people, particularly those whose memory is slipping away.
The professor emeritus of religion is part of a group, called The Four J’s, who perform regularly for retirees. He makes weekly visits, on his own, to two Conway memory care facilities.
“We’ve been doing this for 10 or 12 years — we go to senior citizen centers and assisted living centers and play sing-along music, but I go solo to Alzheimer’s units because I don’t want to overwhelm them,” he said.
“Every once in a while I’m lucky enough to bring a therapy dog with me,” he said.
“I go in. I have a guitar. I play sing-along music,” he said.
A typical set list contains a variety of music; the visit lasts about an hour.
“I always start with ‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot,’ and then I do ‘He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands’. [Next] I turn to ‘You Are My Sunshine’ because I know they know those melodies, and then I turn to hymns. I’ll do ‘The Old Rugged Cross’ or ‘How Great Thou Art.’”
Patriotic anthems and pop songs are also part of his repertoire.
McDaniel, 74, was a teenager in the 1960s, so he has Beatles songs embedded deep in his brain.
The residents he visits are often a decade older; their soul is better stirred, he said, by the King of Rock ’n’ Roll.
“I do a little Elvis routine: ‘Don’t Be Cruel,’ ‘Hound Dog,’ ‘All Shook Up,’” McDaniel said. “But it’s always [about] finding the music that was important to them at a certain point in their life.”
If he strikes the wrong chord or misses a note, that’s not a problem.
Perfection isn’t the aim; rekindling memories and providing comfort is what matters.
“It’s not a performance. It’s not entertainment. It’s a moment of joy — that’s my aim — or a moment of feeling,” he said.
When the Four J’s play for seniors either in independent or assisted living, the audiences sometimes request particular tunes.
McDaniel picks the music himself when he’s performing for those in memory care.
“The Alzheimer’s [patients], they’re not where they can think to request [songs]. That’s not exactly something they’re able to do. Some of them can’t talk at all,” he said.
But the music is able to circumvent the barriers that the disease has erected.
“Some will tap their feet, and some will tap their hands, and, for some, the lyrics emerge, and they know this song,” he said.
“I’m always looking for some kind of response where they feel rhythm and melody touches them,” he said.
The songs can cause delight or tears — love songs and “God Bless America” sometimes trigger those.
Either reaction is OK, McDaniel has come to believe.
A friend told him that the music “unlocks treasures of the heart.”
“That aliveness — that’s the best of life,” McDaniel said.
“It doesn’t have to be happy. You can feel alive and be sad, but you feel something. And that’s what’s going on with the music: You feel something,” he said.
As he’s aged, McDaniel has witnessed family members as their memories slipped away.
“My father had dementia and my sister and my father-in-law,” he said. “I’ve seen it close at hand with loved ones.”
His wife’s dad, Arthur Johnson, had been a biology professor at Hendrix. He was ill when covid-19 rates were soaring.
“I started playing for my fatherin-law where he was [receiving care], and during the pandemic, when we couldn’t go see him, I’d play through the window of his
room,” McDaniel recalled.
Soon, other musician friends were joining him, creating a social-distanced symphony.
Johnson died in October 2020, at age 95, but the music hasn’t ceased.
People who have lost loved ones to Alzheimer’s are sometimes moved to volunteer, McDaniel said.
“There’s a personal connection. You know it, you’ve touched it, you’ve seen it, so you understand,” he said.
People who want to help or who are looking for resources should contact the Arkansas Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, he said.
The association can be reached at (800) 272-3900 or at alz.org/arkansas.
Jill Thompson, the Arkansas chapter’s program director, said the organization is eager to help.
She has seen, firsthand, the good music can do for those going through Alzheimer’s.
“Even when language and other memories are disappearing, music memories remain. This is because the area of the brain involved in musical memory and processing is typically the last area to be affected by Alzheimer’s or dementia,” she said.
Music isn’t just good for the listener, she noted. It’s also good for the performer as well.
“Research has shown that music training, whether it’s singing, composing or learning to play an instrument, can delay cognitive decline and promote what they call brain plasticity,” she said.
McDaniel, who taught religion for almost 40 years at Hendrix, is an expert on world religions and process theology who has worked to foster interfaith dialogue.
One of his books is titled “Gandhi’s Hope: Learning from Other Religions as a Path to Peace.”
McDaniel’s own faith helped lead him to do the volunteer work, he said.
“I’m a Christian, influenced by Buddhism and the Buddhism in me makes me interested in the moment and what’s happening in the moment,” he said. “The Christian in me makes me interested in being a source of healing and wholeness, however it’s possible.”
“I think of these moments as moments of Holy Communion — it’s a deeper sense of community; it’s a moment of togetherness,” he said.