Understanding Music Therapy

What is Music Therapy

by Lake Dell
There is no question that music has this sort of power over our minds. Shakespeare was quoted as saying, If music be the food of love, play on. But, it seems that it is also the food of our health.
There are many trained professionals that use music in a therapeutic sense; this is Music Therapy. This idea that music can help in the healing process is dated back to Plato’s days.
Today, the use of music for therapy began when music was found to help war veterans cope with physical and emotional trauma.
Soon enough, music therapy, backed by statistics and scientific testing, became well known for it’s healing abilities. In 1944, The State of Michigan created a program for music therapy.
Music therapy patients are first tested to see how they respond to music through emotional well-being, physical health, social functioning and cognitive skills. Once diagnosed, the patient is put in a program where a trained music therapist designs music sessions.
The music sessions are created based on the patients’ needs and responses to songs, lyrics, imagery, and performances.
Music therapy has been known to help patients in all age groups. Children with certain developmental and learning disabilities benefit from music therapy as much as the senior citizens who suffer from Alzheimer and the likes can benefit as well.
You can usually find a music therapy professional in many different places such as rehab facilities and correctional facilities. Even some schools employ these professionals.
There is a myth in the industry that a patient can only benefit from music therapy with they have some kind of musical ability. But it has been proven that anybody can be aided by music therapy.
It is important for the professionals to know the background and history of a patient to fully assess what music will and will not help.
Even healthy people can make use of the healing powers of music. Listening to or making music, playing or drumming can greatly reduce stress and improve productivity. Research shows that music is a vital support for physical exercise.
In hospitals, music therapy is used to alleviate pain and is often used in conjunction with anesthesia or pain medication. A question that is often raised is why use music if anesthesia does the same thing? Music helps because it dissolves emotional barriers and elevates the patients mood.
Depression can be fought using music therapy as the right kind of music relaxes and calms patients. It is even known to fully sedate some people.

Understanding more about anesthesia | Healing Music Enterprises Blog

Understanding more about anesthesia | Healing Music Enterprises Blog

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Music soothes the savage patient?

Science with a Smile: Music soothes the savage patient

admin | May 10, 2009 | Comments 0

Roger R. Coleman, Doctor of Chiropractic

There’s a part of me that sort of thinks when you hear harp music you’re probably not doing too good and if the person plucking the harp has wings you’ve got real trouble. But I could be wrong. 

It seems researchers at the Department of Vascular and Thoracic Surgery and Critical Care at the University of Central Florida-Orlando had a somewhat different idea. 

They launched a pilot study in which they wanted to find out if pain and anxiety could be reduced by live harp music. 

They used a 20-minute session of harp music to see if it was effective. And guess what, that 20 minutes of harp music decreased both pain and anxiety. 

But as the researchers point out, they couldn’t really be sure if the effects were produced by the harp music, the presence of the harpist and data collector or both. 

But it certainly is intriguing to think something as simple as music might lead to treatments that make us feel better. 

Remember, this was a pilot study and there was no control group to compare with the patients, who listened to the harp music, but still, it’s a study and you and your doctor should discuss it. So sit down with your personal doctor and the two of you can read a copy of “The effects of harp music in vascular and thoracic surgical patients” by D. Aragon.

As for me, I find harp music just a little scary, but I do seem to feel more relaxed after listening to Dean Martin or even some Jimmy Buffett. 

Now if they could just come up with music that would stop baldness, that would be a scientific breakthrough. 

Remember, this information is not intended as health care advice. The responsibility to determine the risk, usability and value of any information lies with your personal health care provider.

Should we leave Susan Boyle alone?

An interesting news story...

First, out of nowhere, there was Susan Boyle. And yea, the world dropped its jaws at the sound of that crystal-clear voice coming out of an ordinary looking woman, and saw that it was good.

AP file

People, she got a haircut and a scarf. This is not major cosmetic surgery, here.

And then, she showed up with a new hairdo and a Burberry scarf, and lo, the people started to freak the heck out. "What's next, a fake tan?" sniffed the Associated Press.

Come on. The woman got a $51 haircut and a scarf! It's not like she instantly threw herself on the plastic-surgery operating table and loaded up on Jimmy Choo stilettos. For all that she did clean up a bit, she still reminds me of a grade-school piano teacher. She'd never be noticed in a crowd by anyone who hadn't watched her YouTube audition clip.

But after the Boyle bonanza, in which everyone and their sister was e-mailing the YouTube clip, and then the Media Discovery, in which sites like ours were re-telling the story YouTubers already knew, there came the inevitable Warning Of The Backlash.

This story in the Times Online blames the supposed backlash on the new look, the fact that apparently Boyle's "never been kissed" line wasn't true, and that she's had some past musical success. Big deal. She's 47, if she hadn't ever tried to break into music before, with that voice, she's not just dowdy, as the paper calls her, but dumb. So she's not dumb! That's good!

And after the Warning of the Backlash came the declaration that said backlash was actually bogus. Any moment now we await the word that the bogus backlash itself was really bogus, and then the reversal of that bogus backlash, and now I can't even be bothered to keep up any more.

Healing Music in France

This afternoon I went to the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. It is definitely my favorite museum in Paris! There are so many beautiful impressionistic paintings that show how important music has always been in the life of Europeans and the French especially! I don't have much time at the moment to muse about all of the feelings I had today looking at these paintings but will write about it more when i return. Meanwhile, enjoy this famous painting of some of the male musicians who were friends of Landowska at the turn of the century!

Music Healing and Rap Music

I'd like to introduce you to my friend and former student Carlos Merriweather, a.k.a. Tony Dollars, biographer of Consumine Desire. He has written an intriguing book that is all about compassion and learning how to internalize compassion in your life and share it with others, especially young people. Carlos says "Healing the self destructive mind of the Rap Music Listener. Consumine Desire offers not only theraputic listening and singing. This theraputic listening and singing adapts to the plan of "Compassion Action" as a self healing endeavor to make positive adjustment to any detrimental behavior. Get your copy of the story by clicking the book at www.consuminedesire.wordpress.com

Anesthesia-related heart attack?

You've probably heard that anesthesia carries risks with it. I think that the average person thinks mainly of

• not waking up from surgery
• severe nausea
• prolonged grogginess
• severe constipation
• rashes and skin eruptions

and other such things. But did you know that cardiac arrest can also be an unwanted side effect? You may have heard of the rapper "Usher?" His wife went to Brazil for plastic surgery and suffered cardiac arrest in mid-surgery. Here's what the AP news said: A spokeswoman for the Sirio-Libanes Hospital said Wednesday that Tameka Raymond left the facility Monday night but declined to provide any details on Raymond's treatment at the family's request. The spokewoman spoke on condition of anonymity per hospital policy.
Representatives for Usher had no immediate comment.
Ellen Dastry, a spokeswoman for the doctor who was to perform the plastic surgery, said last week that Raymond suffered a cardiac arrest while being anesthetized ahead of a "simple liposuction" at Sao Paulo's Sao Rafael Hospital.
Raymond was revived in less than a minute with heart massage, and was placed in an induced coma before being taken to the intensive-care unit, said Dastry, spokeswoman for plastic surgeon Silvio Sterman.
She was then transferred to the posh and better-equipped Sirio-Libanes Hospital to recover.
Usher was supposed to perform at music mogul Clive Davis' pre-Grammy party, but backed out to come to Brazil to be with his wife.