Music Gives Them New Incentive : Senior citizens: For a group of nursing home residents, playing in a bell choir is physical and emotional therapy.

Residents of nursing homes for the elderly may be too easily stereotyped as passive recipients of care, unable to offer much in return.

“A lot of times, people think that patients in nursing homes are just waiting for their tickets to be pulled by the Almighty,” said Sheryl Brykman, administrator of the Brykirk Extended Care Hospital in Alhambra.

But thanks to a new musical therapy program at Brykirk and California Lutheran Home in Alhambra, 14 senior citizens have been able to rediscover what it means to give to the community.

They have formed a handbell choir, and after practicing all year, have recently had their first public performance.

During the holidays, they played Christmas carols at the Santa Anita Fashion Park in Arcadia.

“All the family members came. We had an audience of about 150,” Brykman said. “They (the seniors) just lit up when they heard the applause and knew they were doing something to give happiness to other people.”

The people who play in the choir suffer from a variety of physical and emotional ailments, including strokes and Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. They are all over 85, and the oldest is 98, Brykman said.

“Some of them can’t speak or they’re generally non-responsive,” she said. “But when they hear the music, they come alive. They remember singing these old songs when they were kids and when they were raising kids.”

Music therapy is being used increasingly in nursing homes to provide physical and emotional benefits, Brykman said.

The therapy uses an instrument called the bell chime, which has a bell at the end of a flexible shaft so that only a slight hand action will strike it against a wooden shaft.

The groups at the two Alhambra nursing homes began practicing every other week about a year ago. They increased to weekly practices as their December concert neared and rehearsed together once before the performance.

In the therapy sessions, Barbara Stone, Brykirk’s music therapist, leads the group in renditions of “Tea for Two,” “Home on the Range” and other camp songs and Broadway tunes.

Stone uses her guitar and simple body language to keep the bells in rhythm. When it is time for a particular bell to be rung, Stone cues the appropriate bell-ringer by gesturing at him or her with the guitar.

The bell choir will continue to learn new pieces and hopes to perform again this year. “They’re still feeling the residuals of the concert,” Brykman said. “It made them feel good about themselves.”