Research Collaboration Wins Quality Improvement and Health Outcome Award

A Bass Connections project team, Music and Memory in the Aging Brain, is working with the Eno Pointe Assisted Living Community to investigate how personalized music intervention might affect people with dementia or cognitive impairment.

Kelly Murphy and Daniel Goltz initiated this research during their first year as medical students, and received the Chancellor’s Community Service Award. This month, the program at Eno Pointe, “Connecting Residents with Dementia to their Autobiographic Soundtrack with Personalized Music," will receive a 2016 AMDA (American Medical Directors Association) Foundation Quality Improvement & Health Outcome Award.

This honor and $1,000 are awarded to three medical facilities each year for the successful implementation of programs that improve their residents’ quality of life. These awards are based on programs medical directors and care teams have implemented to improve the quality of life for their post-acute/long-term care residents.

At AMDA’s annual symposium in Orlando on March 18, Murphy and Goltz are invited to share research during an educational session.

The Music and Memory in the Aging Brain project aims to provide a scientific approach to investigating potential benefits of personalized music intervention as a means to enhance mental functioning and quality of life in older adults with and without cognitive impairment. Last fall, the team toured pilot sites and received approval from the Institutional Review Board to conduct their research. As of December 2015, they had worked with seven residents of the Eno Pointe Assisted Living Community who are close to completing their personalized music program.

Duke students, see the 2016-17 project teams and find out how to get involved in Bass Connections.