LO3, LO6

A significant part of Music Reminiscence was visiting the lodge and the residents. My initial goal was directly related to understanding dementia patients in Singapore and focused around my physical visits—offering my time to use music therapy (reminiscence, to be more accurate) to provide emotional benefits. This was a specific goal that no longer became possible with COVID-19 restrictions. After facing this challenge, my service group and I shifted towards planning a project to provide our school community with information about dementia. We worked on educational visit sessions for high school students in hopes of helping those who have someone with dementia in their life. If not, we would at the very least spread awareness about dementia and help reduce the stigma around discussion on it. In particular, I proposed the idea of making activities with audience participation to use in sessions and was involved in designing these short activities.

After the circuit breaker, our group had to shift to online meetings and faced new challenges. We adjusted our ideas into making a video instead and changed to online meetings. They were undoubtedly less impactful in making a change for our community, especially compared to when we were making visits. Yet, while facing these obstacles, I had the chance to reflect on the times I did visit, and further educate myself on the details of dementia in Singapore, such as specific statistics, and personal experiences of Singaporeans who have a family member with Alzheimer’s. Through this experience, I was forced to adapt to a difficult situation, which will hopefully prepare me for similar situations in the future.