Rogerson House resident Mary Sagan shook maracas while she danced in her seat. She kept beat with musical therapist Wendy Krueger and sang when Wendy got to the songs’ refrains. But the songs weren’t the ones typically sung in a Rogerson House music therapy class, they were children’s classics like “The Wheels on the Bus” and “Old MacDonald’s Farm”; and the audience wasn’t a typical music therapy audience, toddlers and preschoolers were singing just as loudly as the Rogerson House residents and participants were.
       
Rogerson House recently opened its doors to neighborhood daycare centers for events such as a “teddy bear picnic” and a beach party. While these events were successful if only for the fun that both the children and the Rogerson House residents and participants had; they were part of a larger, more extensive project designed to foster intergenerational relationships.  

Put simply, intergenerational relationships are repeated interactions between individuals from different generational brackets. Yet in practice, there is nothing simple about these relationships, explained intergenerational expert and professor Sally Newman, Ph.D.
 
Intergenerational relationships are productive because they are “non-threatening and accepting relationships.” She added, “Whatever the vehicle, both generations can develop skills, learn from each other, and grow in a non-pressured way.”

Sally explained that “the last thing that people with Alzheimer’s forget is their childhood.”  And while no research has been compiled on why intergenerational relationships bring such profound joy to those with memory loss, Sally believes that people with memory loss are able to “revisit the joyful moments of their childhood” when they are around children.