Giving the gift of music ‘just brings delight’
The nonprofit Life Services Alternatives seeks to expand its music therapy program for severely disabled people at its Santa Clara County residences
Inside the living room of a San Jose home with the quiet group who eagerly awaits his weekly visits, Christian LaPaglia strums on his acoustic guitar as he strolls among two women and a trio of men in wheelchairs, playfully acknowledging each and every one of them.
“Hello to TJ,” he sings to one man, “it’s good to see you. He then gets down on one knee to serenade another resident. “Hello to Natalie, good to see you,” he sings, and Natalie laughs.
Most of the severely developmentally disabled people living in Life Services Alternatives’ homes scattered among Santa Clara County neighborhoods cannot speak or walk. Some come from family homes where aging parents can no longer look after them while others come from institutions. Now, they can live in a governmentlicensed neighborhood house with aroundthe-clock support.
“It’s kind of amazing to see how people respond to a loving and caring environment,” says LSA executive director Dana Hooper. “Most of these individuals are nonverbal but they communicate a lot — with their smiles, with their expressions, with blinks of eyes. We often see growth that maybe was stifled by the environment they were in before they came here. Our philosophy is this should be a home for life.”
The Campbell-based nonprofit operates 15 residences in the county, funded mostly by the state and federal governments, housing 70 disabled people with varying levels of assistance needs. Five of these dwellings house people who require frequent nursing and receive other supportive services, like those offered at the San Jose house where LaPaglia provides a special kind of care: music therapy.
Once a week, LaPaglia visits the house for an hour, playing his guitar, tinkling a xylophone, beating a drum, ringing hand bells, and singing, starting with his personalized
greeting song and continuing on with tunes from the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, John Denver and even Kermit the Frog.
“It’s the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done in my life, besides marrying my wife and adopting our daughter,” says LaPaglia, 55, of San Mateo, who is certified as a music therapist by the profession’s national board, and holds a music degree from San Francisco State University.
“We’re looking for some voluntary responses to the music,” he says, “some gentle movement, tracking with the eyes, vocalizations and hopefully also relaxation.”
For people who are in many ways locked away from others by autism, cerebral palsy or other ailments, the music offers important social engagement through the experience of listening as a group and being addressed through song by LaPaglia. When he sings the residents’ names, they and the others can hear and feel they are not alone, he says.
The weekly sessions give residents something to look forward to, says LSA development director Celia Moreton. “Music is just kind of that level-the-playing fieldthing,” Moreton says. “It just brings delight.”
The nonprofit, founded in 2002, started offering music therapy in 2019, and is seeking $10,000 from Wish Book to expand the program to all five houses with the mostdisabled residents. “We have been amazed by the impact,” Hooper says. “It stimulates them and it improves their health, their wellness and their happiness.”
Music therapy, according to the Cleveland Clinic academic medical center, is an evidence-based clinical treatment that can help people “psychologically, emotionally, physically, spiritually, cognitively and socially.”
The treatment is especially valuable for the mostneedy residents in LSA homes, Hooper says. Residents with less profound disabilities who live in some of the nonprofit’s homes have a multitude of options for excursions and outside programs, and may even hold jobs. But for those in the five homes for severely disabled folks, outings are more limited, and music therapy opens them up to an invaluable aspect of the world outside, Moreton says.
“This is a way to broaden their horizon in a whole different way,” Moreton says. “Even though there’s a lot of medical issues, even though our residents don’t live a typical life, music touches them all.”
While the inner lives of these profoundly disabled
LSA residents may not be apparent, “they have a way of communicating with us their likes and preferences, whether that’s through a warm smile or an excited eye gaze,” says LSA program director Sharmean Heffernan. “We know how they are feeling.”
Developmentally disabled people — many born with cerebral palsy or autism, or having suffered catastrophic injuries — typically come to LSA homes via referrals from schools in a program run by the state Department of Developmental Services.
For LSA, like other residential care providers, the coronavirus outbreak created massive disruptions and challenges. Music therapy and outings were temporarily shut down, as were visits from family and friends, Hooper says. “The pandemic made it difficult for us to keep all of the homes staffed but we continued to operate them seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and the staff were amazing,” he says. In one home, all five residents and all the staff tested positive for the virus, he says. Some of the staff members were put up in hotels by LSA, which also provided incentives for employees to work extra hours and days, as well as bringing in outside workers, he says.
While fallout from the pandemic is now diminishing, the Bay Area’s housing
crisis poses ongoing troubles for LSA, making it hard to find and keep staff, Hooper says. “We see it all the time,” he says. “Sometimes it takes the form of somebody quitting and they’re going to move back to Ohio and live with family, or they’re going to move out into Tracy and find a job out there.”
One LSA administrator, Joseph Lansana, has been with the nonprofit for 12 years, and can’t imagine doing anything else. “This is a case wherein someone is completely, totally unable to help themselves to get the best enjoyment in life,” says Lansana, an immigrant from Sierra Leone. “The help that you provide makes them happy and feel more encouraged to participate in life itself — when that happens, it makes me feel good.”
Lansana and other staff often play recorded music for residents, and it brightens them up, he says. He’s hoping to see what LaPaglia could do for residents of LSA homes who have never experienced the joy of having music played live, just for them. The residents he looks after generally prefer softer tunes, but at one LSA home in Campbell, LaPaglia might have to add a song or two with a harder edge to his repertoire. As Lansana notes, at least one of the residents — Kathy Jacobs — loves AC/DC.