| The purpose of this study was to explore specific preferences of geriatric clients within three age groups or sub-populations of young-old (65-74), mid-old (75-84), and old-old (85 and older). Specifically, this study investigated: the top songs requested/preferred by clients, if any songs overlap among the age groups, the compositional dates most frequent of the songs, and if the songs support the "young adult years' hypothesis." A survey was sent to 465 AMTA members who are categorized as serving geriatric clients. Of the 465, 86 responded to the survey resulting in an 18.5% return rate. Responses resulted in a combined total of 1871 songs. Multiple individual songs overlapped between age groups with all groups sharing 75 songs. Not including the songs overlapped between all groups: young-old and middle-old had 30 songs in common, middle-old and old-old had 40 songs in common, young-old and old-old had 10 songs in common. The compositional date most frequent within the young-old sub-group was 1956, the middle-old and old-old sub-groups was 1930. The most frequent compositional decades for the age groups were: 1950s for the young-old, 1930s for the middle-old, and 1920s for the old-old. Results indicate the majority of the individual songs from all age groups were not in the range of the young adult years, and in fact, are before the young adult years. Tables with the top songs are included. |
