What is music therapy?
Music therapy can involve a variety of different activities, like listening to music, creating music, and reflecting on music. This can help in physical rehabilitation, increasing motivation for treatment, providing emotional support, and expressing oneself. A certified music therapist assesses an individual’s needs and decides what type of music and activity is most beneficial. Who can benefit from music therapy? Music therapy can be used to help people suffering from anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, insomnia, and trauma. It can also help people with Alzheimer’s, dementia, and brain damage. Music is particularly effective in helping people because of its ability to activate the whole brain, as mentioned in this blog post, affecting a person’s cognitive, emotional, and physical functions and abilities. If you’re familiar with my blog, then you know that I am a supporter of music as a way to help people with Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia. Music therapy can help both caregivers and patients by connecting them back to shared experiences, providing meaningful time spent together, being a relaxing experience, and uniting through nonverbal communication. I’d like to share a couple inspiring quotes I found on the American Music Therapy Association’s website, about how music therapy has impacted people’s lives: “The wife of a man with severe dementia said, ‘When I was encouraged by a music therapist to sing to my husband who had been lost in the fog of Alzheimer’s disease for so many years, he looked at me and seemed to recognize me. On the last day of his life, he opened his eyes and looked into mine when I sang his favorite hymn. I’ll always treasure that last moment we shared together. Music therapy gave me that memory, the gift I will never forget.’” “A gentleman in the early stages of progressive dementia improvised on a xylophone during a music therapy session to express his feelings, and then stated: ‘I don’t know how anyone can live without music.’” “When a couple danced together for the first time after five years of the husband’s deterioration from probable Alzheimer’s disease, the wife said: ‘Thank you for helping us dance. It’s the first time in three years that my husband held me in his arms.’ Tearfully, she said that she had missed him just holding her and that music therapy had made that possible.” From just a few sentences, it’s evident that music therapy has profound effects on both patients and loved ones. Once again, I am amazed at how much is able to help so many people and impact them in ways that traditional methods of care may not. Especially for those with Alzheimer’s, I think music is a path worth going down to evoke memories and emotions.
7 Comments
6/8/2020 10:09:19 am
There is a viral Youtube video about how an older man with dementia was 'brought back to life' emotionally by listening to his old music. Music therapy can truly be life changing.
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Shar
6/9/2020 04:18:45 am
I enjoy music therapy often. It cheers me up and induces relaxation as well.
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Christine
6/9/2020 11:55:54 am
I love this so much! Music is essential to our lives in so many ways
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6/9/2020 03:32:24 pm
Thank you for this beautiful post. I have always felt that music played an important role in my everyday life but these stories of personal experiences reconnecting with “lost” loved ones! Totally pulled at my heartstrings.
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