Music therapy

Music therapy is an evidence-based clinical use of musical interventions to improve clients' quality of life. Music therapists use music and its many facets— physical, emotional, mental, social, aesthetic, and spiritual— to help clients improve their health in cognitive, motor, emotional, communicative, social, sensory, and educational domains by using both active and receptive music experiences. These experiences include improvisation, re-creation, composition, receptive methods, and discussion of music. Some common music therapy practices include developmental work (communication, motor skills, etc.) with individuals with special needs, songwriting and listening in reminiscence, orientation work with the elderly, processing and relaxation work, and rhythmic entrainment for physical rehabilitation in stroke victims. Music therapy is used in some medical hospitals, cancer centers, schools, alcohol and drug recovery programs, psychiatric hospitals, and correctional facilities. There is a wide qualitative and quantitative research literature base for music therapy. Music therapy is distinctive from Musopathy, which relies on a more generic and non-cultural approach based on neural, physical, and other responses to the fundamental aspects of sound. According to Dr. Daniel Levitin, 'Singing and instrumental activities might have helped our species to refine motor skills, paving the way for the development of the exquisitely fine muscle control required for vocal or signed speech.” Evidence suggests that music therapy is beneficial for all individuals, both physically and mentally. Benefits of music therapy include improved heart rate, reduced anxiety, stimulation of the brain, and improved learning. Music therapists use their techniques to help their patients in many areas, ranging from stress relief before and after surgeries to neuropathologies such as Alzheimer's disease. One study found that children who listened to music while having an IV inserted into their arms showed less distress and felt less pain than the children who did not listen to music while having an IV inserted. Studies on patients diagnosed with mental disorders such as anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia have shown a visible improvement in their mental health after music therapy. There are two fundamental types of music therapy: receptive music therapy and active music therapy (also known as expressive music therapy). Active music therapy engages clients or patients in the act of making vocal or instrumental music, whereas receptive music therapy guides patients or clients in listening to live or recorded music. Receptive music therapy involves listening to recorded or live music selected by a therapist. It can improve mood, decrease stress, decrease pain, enhance relaxation, and decrease anxiety. Although it doesn't affect disease, it can help with coping skills. In active music therapy, patients engage in some form of music-making, either by singing or by playing instruments. Researchers at Baylor, Scott, and White Universities are studying the effect of harmonica playing on patients with COPD in order to determine if it helps improve lung function. Another example of active music therapy takes place in a nursing home in Japan: therapists teach the elderly how to play easy-to-use instruments so they can overcome physical difficulties.