Individual Music Therapy for Agitation in Dementia: An Exploratory Randomized Controlled Trial Caregivers and nursing home employees often report increased burnout when working with individuals with dementia who are exhibiting signs of agitation. Unfortunately, agitation is a very prevalent symptom in patients with this diagnosis. Agitation can present as aggressive, abusive, and inappropriate behaviors. Increased agitation levels also cause increased distress in these individuals, and in turn, increase the level of medications they receive. Constantly feeling agitated can also lead to lower quality of life. That is where music therapy can play a key role in the treatment for individuals with dementia who experience this difficult symptom. A contrasting thought…
How Does Music Listening Change the Brain for those with Alzheimer’s disease? After watching a video for a recent training, I was simply blown away when the presenter shared the results of this study. I already knew that when a patient with Alzheimer’s disease listened to music that they knew, that they were often able to sing the words and it brought a smile to their face. I had witnessed that in numerous sessions in the past, but what I didn’t know was just how much the music penetrated the brain of the patient. In a pilot study by Fischer, Churchill, Leggieri, Vuong, Tau, Fornazzari, Thaut and Schweizer, researchers examined…
Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the most common type of heart disease in the United States. A typical cause of CAD is a buildup of plaque, which causes coronary arteries to narrow, limiting blood flow to the heart. Symptoms can range from chest pain to a heart attack while treatment options include lifestyle changes, medications, angioplasty, and surgery. While receiving treatment for CAD, various psychological symptoms such as pain, agitation, anxiety, depression, and disorientation may emerge depending on factors like painful procedures, unusual environment and people, disease, not being sufficiently informed about treatment, and implementation. Music therapy research supports that music interventions, when facilitated by a music therapy…
When I tell people that I am a music therapist, I am usually asked if I work with children in schools or older adults in nursing homes. Rarely do people assume that I provide music therapy services for adolescents. An article published in Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy aimed to research and report how music therapists from around the world are clinically trained to work with adolescents as well as how they are currently working with this population. The researching music therapists at the helm of this report sought out to answer these questions and review the current literature available for music therapy and adolescents. The music therapy…
The benefits of music therapy for people living with dementia have been studied time and time again. Music therapy can facilitate mood elevation and relaxation, maintain motor skills, promote increased socialization and engagement, and provide opportunities for reminiscence. Reminiscence is defined as recalling memories from your past, either actively or passively. Music therapists who work with this population have always used a participant’s preferred music to evoke memories and emotions that may arise from hearing a beloved song. Music therapists can use a variety of interventions with individuals with dementia to work on the goal of reminiscence, including song discussion, therapeutic singing, and therapeutic songwriting. Music therapy groups in an…
The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is something that expecting parents are never fully prepared for. The transition into parenthood, for the first time parents or parents with 3 kids all ready, is interrupted. This interruption presents a number of emotional, mental, and financial challenges. And while the care that babies recieve in a NICU is outstanding, it leads one to question the quality of care that the parents themselves receive. Constantly being in the hospital and watching their child go through so much at such a young age is, quite frankly, a lot to handle. This clinical pilot intervention aims to demonstrate that music therapy can provide parents of…
Once again, if you have been following my blogs on the Central Ohio Music Therapy, LLC website or our Facebook page, you are familiar with my dual role as a music therapist and music educator. Having to conduct music therapy sessions virtually (and usually with only 1 – 4 patients at the most), I was fascinated to learn what challenges music educators had with trying to teach virtually and have a full classroom! This article looks at what music educators learned during the COVID-19 virtual learning school year in 2020 – 2021. Draper’s article was written just prior to the vaccine rollout and discusses the importance of getting students with…
A lot has changed within this past year regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. “The European Paediatric Association-Union of National European Paediatric Societies and Associations (EPA-UNEPSA) has established a collaborative working group with key Chinese academic institutions and medical centers with the purpose of facilitating the reciprocal exchange of information and sharing scientific knowledge,” (Jiao, et. al., 2020). The purpose of this group is to raise awareness to children’s psychological needs during epidemics and report early data collected. Children are affected by the COVID-19 epidemic by experiencing fears, uncertainties, and physical and social isolation. A study conducted in Shaanxi Province in February 2020 was that the most common psychological and behavioral problems…
“Breast cancer is the most frequently occurring cancer among women worldwide,” (Zhou, et. al., 2011). This study was based in China and the writers state how relevant breast cancer rates are in their country as well as in the western regions of the world. They state that the primary treatment for breast cancer is surgery among several other treatment options, and those can lead to negative side effects and unhealthy mood, such as depression. The prevalence rate of depression in China ranges from 3.0% to 47.6%, and in other countries it ranges from 34.4% to 89.5%. One tool to care for these patients is the use of music therapy, and…
Music therapy has an effect on many areas of one’s functioning. These areas include cognition, physicality, communication, social interaction, and emotional wellness. When someone experiences a stroke or traumatic brain injury (TBI), these areas can be impacted greatly, and music therapy can be a method of support as well as rehabilitation. This article states that at the time, there was little research in the stroke and TBI realm, but there were other studies that assessed positive effects for other populations. This article quotes another study in 1992 by MacRae Statine, “Because music is laden with emotional associations and memories, it provides an effective medium for evoking emotional responses. This study…