Music as Therapy - making friends & creating smiles through Music

Assisteo Hospice's Volunteer Program, where we make friends and create smiles.

Do you play a musical instrument? Maybe the guitar, banjo, piano, or harp? Are you caring, compassionate and enjoy spending time with seniors? Being a Patient Care Volunteer with Assisteo Hospice could be for you. Patient Care Volunteers provide much needed emotional and socialization support to meet the non-medical needs of patients and their families - friendship, support, encouragement, socialization, and companionship... making friends and creating smiles, as we like to say.

Many of our patients greatly enjoy listening to music, even more so, having people come to play live for them. Music is known to connect with parts of the brain like nothing else does. Music can be played either bedside, one on one with patients, or in a larger group setting.

Some proven benefits of music therapy for seniors include:

• Helps to process thoughts
• Rekindles positive memories
• Relieves boredom
• Reduces stress
• Improves speech skills
• Encourages happy thoughts
• Motivates movements
• Increases social interaction

Our music volunteers are part of our patient care volunteer team and receive training to help make the most of the visits (in addition to playing music). Not only do our patient care volunteers make a tremendous difference in the lives of our patients, but our volunteers receive so much as well from the time spent with patients.

One thing that is special about Assisteo Hospice is that we are a Veteran centric hospice. Over half of our patients are U.S. Military Veterans.

Our main admin office is in Phoenix, but we provide patient care for most of Maricopa County.

Most of our musicians play for groups in skilled nursing facilities, group homes, and assisted living facilities. If this sounds of interest to you, I'd like to work out a day/time to connect on the phone to start. I can answer questions, share more details, talk about our on-boarding process, etc.

Thank you for considering being a part of the Assisteo Hospice team.

Brian Hetzer

Volunteer Coordinator

Assisteo Hospice

(480) 544-2128 - cell

bhetzer@assisteohospice.com