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Hazel Stevens reached out to touch her music therapist.

The eye contact that went away when Alzheimer's disease gripped her life returns as Karla Mramor sings to her.

Hazel's daughter and caretaker, Debbie Noonan, is overjoyed.

"It's unbelievable, the interaction she has with Karla," she said. "Typically there's not that kind of interaction."

If Noonan had her way, the home visits with the music therapist from Hospice of Naples would be daily.

Her mother was diagnosed 10 years ago with early-onset Alzheimer's at the age of 57. Today she's confined to a wheelchair and no longer speaks.

"She still knows us," Noonan, 38, said. "She may not call us by name. Typically she doesn't talk. Every once in a while she will come out with something that just floors you."

Last Friday during Mramor's third music therapy visit to the Noonan's home in East Naples, where she brings her portable keyboard and digital guitar, Hazel absorbed the music and rocked gently back and forth in her wheelchair. Her mouth moved to form words.

Garrett Hubbard / Daily News

Hazel Kay Stevens, 67, responds to a kiss from her daughter Debbie Noonan, center, after Karla Mramor, Hospice of Naples music therapist, right, played and sang "Kiss an Angel Good Morning" during their bi-weekly appointment in the Noonan home on Friday in Naples. Debbie's son, Matt, 16, watches in the background and often plays the guitar with Karla during the session.

"She's trying more to sing with me," Mramor said. "Sing it, sweetie."

Mramor finished "Amazing Grace." The words came.

"That was very good," Hazel said, barely audible.

Noonan and her two children, Matt, 16, and Katelyn, 10, were floored.

"Now you are talking about a woman who doesn't talk," Noonan said.

Mramor joined the hospice staff in April but has 21 years of experience as a music therapist and is a board-certified clinician. She's available to any of the 276 patients with hospice, said Beth Kalvin, hospice spokeswoman.

"It's part of the hospice philosophy, an interdisciplinary approach," she said, referring to the variety of therapies and services available to clients and families. "We are just not managing their symptoms."

Additional programs are massage therapy, healing touch, aromatherapy, art therapy, and pet therapy.

The hospice staff has weekly meetings to discuss patients and that's when Mramor and the others decide which patients may benefit from music therapy. It is proven to help with depression, anxiety, isolation, fear and pain, said Mramor, who has written scholarly articles on the subject.

"I see patients with all types of disease processes going on, many with cancer," she said.

She visits a hospice patient about every two weeks, having to juggle how they are doing, their families and her patient volume.

Noonan said her mother has cherished music all her life.

"She woke me up every morning with 'Kiss an Angel,' " she said. "When she was cleaning, Elvis was playing."

The music therapy likewise helps Noonan and her family, who have been caring for Hazel in their home for 10 years.

"After (Mramor) leaves, the whole family is uplifted," she said. "It's not just mom. It's the whole family."