A new program on Vashon is proving that an activity many people take for granted — plugging in headphones and listening to music — can make a big difference in the lives of the elderly.

“They light up when they see it’s time for their music,” said Deborah Byington, the Life Enrichment Program coordinator at Vashon Community Care. “You can really see the change in expression on their faces.”

This winter Byington has been overseeing a program to get residents at Vashon Community Care (VCC) listening to personalized music, an activity that’s been shown to ease the symptoms of dementia and is believed by some to improve access to memories that seem otherwise unreachable.

The care center is now collecting new and used iPods as well as iTunes gift cards for its Music & Memory program, and it will have a table at the Vashon Senior Center’s screening of “Alive Inside,” an award-winning documentary film about the program and the effects of music on memory in the elderly, at the Vashon Theatre on Tuesday.

“Memory loss is a big issue for people on the island,” said Ava Apple, the senior center’s director. “We held a couple of forums back in September about it … and were amazed at the turnout and hunger for knowledge around the topic. Everybody stayed and asked questions for a long time.”

Around that same time, VCC became certified in the Music & Memory program, enabling it to offer its residents iPods to listen to music they enjoy or that is meaningful for them.

“It’s really something to watch your loved one and know that they are enjoying … something,” said Martha Woodard, whose mother Kathleen Haygood, 91, participates in the program. “Music was always very important to Mom.”

Cara Aguilera, VCC’s activities director, said that she and several staff members saw the documentary “Alive Inside” at a training session and wanted to give the Music & Memory program a try. Coincidentally, it was around this time that VCC received a call from the Lucky Seven Foundation, which offered to pay the $1,000 certification fee for the program. Members of the foundation’s board had also seen the film and wanted to help get the program started in several Seattle-area care facilities.

Aguilera and several staff members participated in the training process, and in November VCC became one of 15 long-term care facilities in Washington to be certified in the Music & Memory program.

Byington has been primarily responsible for implementing the program and has been working with most of the residents in the skilled nursing area, including Haygood and Lilah Hook, 90.

“Lilah lost her words completely about six months ago, but she’ll respond to the music,” Byington said. “You can see her foot tapping sometimes, and she’ll relax. It really seems to comfort her.”

Byington said she often uses the iPods and personalized music playlists for Hook and several other residents at mealtimes as it seems to keep them alert and more interested in eating.

Woodard credits the music program with helping her mother bounce back from a fall she suffered several months ago.

“She had stopped talking. But since they started the music with her, she’s trying to talk again, and she’s more responsive,” she said. “Music is the key. It’s been a real force of communication through the whole process.”

Some of the benefits that listening to personalized music has been reported to have in people with dementia include decreased agitation, increased alertness, increased engagement with caregivers and family members, increased verbal and non-verbal communication and even a decrease in the need for psychotropic drugs to treat behavioral and psychiatric issues.

While scientific studies are inconclusive as to whether music can actually improve memory function in patients with dementia, they do support many of these behavioral findings.

In 2013, Wisconsin launched a statewide initiative enabling 100 nursing homes to become certified in the Music & Memory program as part of a broader effort to decrease the use of antipsychotic drugs in those facilities. Within a year, the antipsychotic prescription rate had dropped by 3 percent across the state, with officials attributing much of the credit to the music program. In fact, officials were so impressed with the positive impact they observed in the facilities where the program had been implemented that they expanded funding for an additional 150 facilities to implement the program.

Joshua Grill, PhD, director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Treatment Development Program at the University of California, Los Angeles, Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research, has written that music has an ability to activate the brain uniquely, in several different areas and in different ways. This makes it likely that some or all of these areas are spared from the damage done by the degenerative processes that most often affect the areas of the brain responsible for memory and language. Studies have also shown that music can activate pleasure and reward centers in the brain, lending further support to its positive impact, regardless of whether there is any significant change in communication or engagement.

The film “Alive Inside” follows Dan Cohen, a social worker from New York who founded Music & Memory, a nonprofit organization devoted to bringing music to those suffering from dementia-related memory loss, and chronicles the experiences of people all over the country who have seemingly been revitalized and reconnected to the world around them through listening to music.

Cohen began the program after considering his own future — if someday he were to end up in a nursing home, he hoped that he would have a way to continue to listen to the ’60s music that he loved. After hearing a news story about the prevalence of iPods, he came up with the idea to take iPods into nursing homes so that residents could listen to music that they enjoyed.

He tested a program of creating personal playlists for residents of several long-term care facilities in New York, which yielded positive feedback from residents, staff and family members. He started the Music & Memory nonprofit in 2010 with an eye to expanding the program to reach as many facilities as possible throughout North America.

Apple said she was inspired to bring the film about Cohen to Vashon, even before she knew VCC was beginning the Music & Memory program.

“I watched the trailer and got choked up,” she said.

At VCC, staff and residents’ family members now put together music playlists that are personalized for each participant in the program.

“We give the families, and residents if they’re capable, a questionnaire about music they like, genres, artists, or even specific albums or CDs if they can name them,” Byington said.

At the moment, VCC has enough iPods for its 30 skilled nursing residents, but staff would like to expand the program to assisted living residents as well as adult day program participants. All donations received at the documentary screening will go to expanding the program and building the music library.

Apple, for her part, is hoping for a good turnout not only to support the VCC program, but also the senior center. The documentary’s distributor initially asked for $700 to show the film on Vashon, but eventually agreed to $350.

“Most importantly, we are bringing the film as a service to the community. But it was very expensive (for us), so hopefully we’ll be able to recoup at least some of the cost,” she said.

“We’re very excited. This is the first GreenTech night that the Senior Center has hosted,” Apple added. “Hopefully it’s the first of many.”

Alive Inside” will show at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 13, at the Vashon Theatre. Tickets cost $9, with all proceeds going to the Vashon Senior Center. Gently used or new iPods and iTunes gift cards may be donated to VCC’s Music & Memory program at the screening or at the care center.