Memory Bridge Connects Chicago At-Risk Students with Dementia Patients

An innovative non-profit program in Chicago called Memory Bridge connects at-risk teens with dementia patients, giving both groups a chance to learn.

By Kathryn Hawkins. Posted on April 18 2010

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/horiavarlan/

You wouldn’t think a high school student from one of Chicago’s most impoverished school districts would have much in common with an 82-year-old dementia patient at an area nursing home. But several months ago, when teenager Vance Sanders sat down with his “buddy,” Seymour Dulberg, they soon discovered a simple way to connect: through music.

Vance began clapping his hands, dancing in his seat. When he began to sing “Rock Around the Clock,” Dulberg was captivated. After the song ended, Dulberg had a request: “You’ve got to play ‘The Twist’ again,” Dulberg told him, reports the Chicago Tribune. “It’s got a big beat.”

Vance and Dulberg are two of the participants in a unique non-profit educational program known as Memory Bridge, which brings students from at-risk schools together with senior citizen “buddies” suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. The program was created in 2005 by Lake Forest Academy teacher Michael Verde, who was inspired by the death of a grandfather with dementia. He believed that by facilitating positive interactions between at-risk youths and dementia patients, the teens would gain a better sense of empathy, and that violence in inner-city schools would go down.

The Illinois Department of Human Services supported Verde’s vision, and since 2006, they’ve been funding the program in Chicago’s public schools. Over 2,000 students from 100 schools have since participated.

Verde claims that the experience is almost magical for many of the students who participate in the program. “If you feel with someone,” he said, “some very extraordinary things begin to happen.”

While there are occasional drop-outs from the program’s 12-week sessions, most of the students who participate form close bonds with their partners, and are able to adopt an attitude of patience and kindness. But the students aren’t the only ones to benefit from the innovative program.

Memory Bridge is “better than any pill,” said Rebecca Reif, a program director at the Montgomery Place care facility. “I call it taking them from a state of ill-being to a state of well-being. It’s a beautiful circle of knowledge, emotion and life force.”

Learn more about the program at its website.

Filed under: Arts and Culture, Health and Wellbeing, Non-Profits,