VALUES / The Rhythm of Life : Older adults with dementia share memories, music, companionship at Opica.

Leonard Maullin, an agile 83, is doing a spirited boogie-woogie with a spry blond who once sang professionally. Seated in a circle, the elderly men and women keep the beat, shaking their gourds and tambourines, clapping their hands.

It’s music therapy hour at Opica, a Westside drop-in care center for those who live with dementia--the vast majority from Alzheimer’s disease--and other mentally or physically crippling disorders.

Lauren Helfand, center director, watches approvingly.

“Leonard will dance any time of the day or night.” True, Maullin says, and he has little trouble finding partners--the other men and women here attend in almost equal numbers. But, he admits, “I get a little tired myself sometimes.”

For most of those here, Opica is a way station along the road to institutionalization. Here the members, as they are called (and who will stay an average of two years), can find companionship and mental stimulation in a safe environment six hours a day, six days a week.

“And it gives the family respite before the nursing home or a locked facility,” Helfand says.

Opica (for Older Persons’ Information and Counseling Associates), now 20 years old, is one of 68 such centers in a county where, by estimates of the Alzheimer’s Assn. of Los Angeles, there are 150,000 people who have the disease--70% of whom are cared for at home.

The need for adult day care is enormous, says association executive director Peter Braun.

“Caring for someone with Alzheimer’s is like running a marathon . . . not a sprint. The person can live five, 10 or 15 years, depending on their biological clock. Caregivers are desperately in need of rest and support.”

Opica, a pleasant place in West L.A.’s Stoner Park, is at capacity, about 30 members on any given day taking part in its programs. They participate to the degree that they are able--or willing. Music is always a big hit.

“The universal language,” says therapist Aimee LeBec. “When they’re losing their verbal ability, they can still keep the beat and sing along.”

It could be “Hava Nagila” or “The Macarena” or “Yankee Doodle” or “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” or disco. They love the repetition. Helfand says with a smile, “We have people who can sing a song from 50 years ago but can’t tell you what they had for lunch.”

This is an egalitarian society, one with an average age of 70. Some know where they are; others don’t. Says Helfand, “We tell them it’s a social club, which, by and large, is pretty much what it is. We try to keep it as far away from the clinical as possible.”

On their first day, she adds, “A lot of people think they’re being placed in a home,” which is their biggest fear. Others “think they’re coming to work here and start giving directions.” One woman decided it was a university and Helfand the dean.

Last year Opica honored its members by publishing a book, “Capturing Moments in Time: The Portraits and Stories of Opica.” In it, Helfand saluted the members as human beings who “have known the depths of pain, love, sorrow and joy, and survived to tell about it,” to remember war and the Great Depression, birth and death. “Memories,” she wrote, “are the ultimate weapons in the war on destroyed synapses.”

The book is available as a reference for those studying or working with the aged. Educating people about Alzheimer’s is an important part of the agenda at Opica, which offers counseling and support groups for spouses and adult children of its members. They learn ways of talking to this person who is now a stranger to them, learn to bear with repetition, learn which diapers to buy.

“The biggie is the emotional issues,” Helfand says. “They may be caring for a parent they never got along with. All of a sudden they have this burden. The guilt is enormous.”

Music Brings

Them Together

On this day, the group is being serenaded by Oasis, a chorus from a Westside senior center. The singers include Betty Howard, who got Opica and Oasis together. Howard feels a special bond--her late husband, Jerome, attended Opica for four years. She says, “It was a godsend.” She still comes regularly on Mondays “just to visit” and brings baked goods.

Oasis, a volunteer group, is always popular here with its mix of standards and show tunes. “Begin the Beguine,” “Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey?” “Apple Blossom Time.” Helfand recalls, “One member went home and told his wife the Andrews Sisters were here.”

The soloists include Ida Engel, a slip of a woman in a black dress, spangled black sweater and Lucite slingbacks. Sashaying flirtily to the mike, she says, “My 96-year-old voice ain’t what it used to be, but the show must go on.” And so it does, with Engel blowing kisses and singing, “I’ll See You Again.” Not unaware that she is decades older than most of her audience, she says later, “Singing and dancing, that’s what’s kept me alive. When I hear music, that’s when I go off my rocker.”

A man walks by, hell-bent in the direction of the office. A staff person gently redirects him to the men’s room.

Florence Brier, a retired bookkeeper living in Santa Monica, is one of the volunteers today.

“It’s so sad,” she says, “to see these people who used to be attorneys and doctors. It makes me happy to give of myself.” And, at 94, she adds, “it’s better than sitting home and getting bored.”

Another volunteer is 16-year-old Valerie Eliaser of West L.A., for whom this is a history lesson.

“One woman was telling me she was in Poland during the Holocaust,” she says. (Member Rose Einsedler, fighting as a partisan when she was only 14, escaped the Germans by lying down next to her dead brother and pretending she, too, was dead.)

‘Learned by the Seat

of Our Pants’

Lynnette Kurzniak, now on staff, was one of Opica’s founders. Twenty years ago, when little was known about Alzheimer’s, she reflects, “we learned by the seat of our pants what works. We were guarded by angels. We didn’t know enough to lock the doors. People [wandered away], but they always came back.”

Oasis is singing “Put On a Happy Face,” and Willie Polep, at 98 Opica’s senior citizen, is smiling.

“I enjoy everything I do,” he says. “I love everybody, and I hate nobody. I do the best I can, for an old man.”

He loves telling how he “used to charm snakes in the Barnum & Bailey circus” as a young man, got up in a wig and leopard skin.

“You’ve just gotta watch that they don’t get around your neck,” he says. “You’ve just gotta watch that they don’t get around your neck.”

Helfand, who has a master’s degree in art therapy and marriage and family counseling from Loyola Marymount University, came to Opica as an art therapist four years ago. When she was in graduate school, she says, “nobody else wanted to work with seniors” and the placement director thought it would be a good fit for her. Her internship was at a San Pedro hospital, working with the elderly mentally ill.

“When I graduated, I chose Opica primarily because I thought it would be a challenge and also because I lost my father 10 years before that and it was kind of a way to reconnect.” He had a medical condition that, like Alzheimer’s, caused some memory loss and confusion and, she adds, “I could see the way he would interact with my children, so there was hope.”

She used to think, “The end of the life cycle--who wants to be reminded?” But, she says, “I really fell in love with this population.” There’s Joe, who was in the jewelry business. He wrote in the book of portraits: “I am 90 years old. I am 90 years old. Nothing is forever.” And there is Morrie, 81, a retired businessman.

When Morrie Hazan’s doctor suggested to the man’s wife, Shila, that she enroll him at Opica, she was reluctant, perceiving it as a “dumping ground” for old people. Today, she is an enthusiastic supporter. In a letter of appreciation, she wrote of the comfort she derives from seeing him among “people who accept him precisely as he is, without judgment. He is made to think he is the most important person on the planet.”

At $40 to $65 a day (based on income), Opica is at the high end of the adult day-care centers, which cost on average $35 a day, according to the Alzheimer’s Assn. Because these centers provide social, not health, services, they do not qualify for Medicare or Medi-Cal, so clients pay out of their own pockets. The center’s funding comes mostly from member fees, but also from United Way, the Los Angeles Department of Aging, foundations and private donors.

Joy Is Sometimes

Found in the Past

The Opica day begins at 9 with a continental breakfast. Members are also served a hot lunch and an afternoon snack. Activities, designed to improve self-esteem and promote social interaction, include art therapy for those who can no longer find the words to express themselves, speech therapy, chair exercises and reminiscence groups. Of the latter, Helfand says, “reminiscing is a really good thing to do with people who lack present memory. They’re able to connect with events from the past in a really positive way--memories of dances they attended, their first car, the way Los Angeles was 40 years ago, things that evoke pleasant sensations. It helps their cognitive function and it also helps them deal with anxiety and depression. They can sort of remember back to a time when they felt better about who they are.”

“I can’t tell you what a godsend [adult day care] is, not only for the caregiver but for the client,” says Michelle Plauche, manager of the adult day services institute of the Alzheimer’s Assn. “So often people with dementia just stay home and watch TV. There’s just so much life, even in people with dementia, so much living to do. These centers really help people be the best they can be.”

Sometimes they become very lively, indeed. Helfand notes, “We’ve had a few romances over the years. There was a couple that actually went off to a motel after hours.”

In current events discussions, members often surprise her with their grasp of things, “especially if it relates to their past.” A headline about a murder might get them to thinking about fighting in World War II.

There was some debate among the staff over whether to discuss former President Reagan’s announcement that he has Alzheimer’s. In the end, they decided not to. Helfand says, “We don’t usually talk about the illness. Some people can’t handle it.”

Some members might not be here tomorrow or next week or the week after. At first, Helfand feared there would be terrible grief each time someone died. Rather, she has learned, “They say, ‘Oh, that’s too bad, but I’m OK.’ ”

It is almost time to leave for the day. Each day ends at 3 p.m. Helfand explains, “There’s something called sundown. At the end of the day, people with dementia become very agitated and restless.”

A gentleman sitting alone waggles a finger, seeking an audience. He points to Willie, the 98-year-old onetime snake charmer, and confides, “He fought with Gen. Washington.”

* The Alzheimer’s Assn. of Los Angeles can provide information on adult day-care centers and other support programs. Its help line is (800) 660-1993.

* Beverly Beyette can be reached by e-mail at beverly.beyette@latimes.com.