Music Therapy Assessment for Older Adults: Descriptive Mixed-Methods Study.

Background: The purpose of this inquiry was to test the new 'Music Therapy Assessment for Older Adults' (MTAOA) tool in Canada and the United States, and to establish its content and predictive utility.

Methods: A pilot study using an explanatory descriptive methods design was chosen; = 18 music therapists completed an online survey about their experiences in administering the assessment and 50% ( = 9) were invited for a follow-up interview.

Results: The results indicated that the MTAOA was a beneficial assessment tool that contained relevant domains (89%) to develop a music therapy treatment plan; 89% of music therapists also noted they would continue to use and recommend the MTAOA.

Fostering Pre-Professionals and Learning Experiences in End-of-Life Care Contexts: Music Therapy Internship Supervision.

Certified music therapists use music within therapeutic relationships to address human needs, health, and well-being with a variety of populations. Palliative care and music therapy are holistic and diverse fields, adapting to unique issues within end-of-life contexts. Palliative care music therapy has been formally practiced since the late 1970s and affords a variety of benefits, including pain and anxiety reduction, enhancement of quality of life, emotional expression, and relationship completion.

Developing a best-practice agenda for music therapy research to support informal carers of terminally ill patients pre- and post-death bereavement: a world café approach.

Background: Informal carers of terminally ill patients play a vital role in providing palliative care at home, which impacts on their pre- and post-death bereavement experience and presents an up to 50% greater risk for mental-health problems. However, developing and implementing effective bereavement support remains challenging. There is a need to build the evidence base for music therapy as a potentially promising bereavement support for this vulnerable population.

International Music Therapists' Perceptions and Experiences in Telehealth Music Therapy Provision.

The use of telehealth within music therapy practice has increased through necessity in recent years. To contribute to the evolving evidence base, this current study on Telehealth Music Therapy (TMT) was undertaken to investigate the telehealth provision experiences of music therapists internationally. Participants completed an anonymous online cross-sectional survey covering demographics, clinical practice, telehealth provision, and telehealth perceptions.

Long-Term Multi-Sensory Gamma Stimulation of Dementia Patients: A Case Series Report.

Dementia prevalence is increasing globally, and symptom management and treatment strategies require further investigation. Music-based interventions have demonstrated some efficacy with respect to quality of life and symptom reduction, though limited with respect to cognition. This study reports on three case studies where the use of gamma stimulation over one year contributed to maintenance of cognition and increases in mood for participants with Alzheimer's disease or mild cognitive impairment.

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Music Therapy and Art Therapy.

Palliative care is provided by an interdisciplinary team, including physicians, advanced practice providers, nurses, social workers, chaplains, and other disciplines based on need. Music therapists and art therapists are becoming increasingly available to palliative care teams and are advancing the diverse and unique clinical services available to effectively meet the holistic needs of patients with serious illnesses and their families. This article provides a concrete exploration of clinical music therapy and art therapy within palliative care and hospice paradigms, with discussion of therapists' training and expertise, therapeutic approaches within the setting of interprofessional team-based care, and discussion of evidence-based symptom management and outcomes supporting the inclusion of music and art therapies within medical education and clinical employment.

A Sequential Mixed-Methods Study of Pre-Professionals' Understanding of the Undergraduate Music Therapy Internship.

Despite the importance of the clinical music therapy internship, little research has been conducted to understand the perspectives, perceived musical, clinical, and personal skills, concerns, challenges, and anxieties of pre-professionals prior to and upon completion of the internship. This sequential mixed-methods study aimed to assess the perspectives and experiences of undergraduate students in the United States at two stages in the internship in music therapy practice. In total, 177 pre-professionals from the United States participated in this two-part study: (1) an online survey and (2) individual interviews with 25% (n = 44) of the participants.

Are We Doing More Than We Know? Possible Mechanisms of Response to Music Therapy.

Due to advances in medical knowledge the population of older adults struggling with issues of aging like Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD), and stroke is growing. There is a need for therapeutic interventions to provide adaptive strategies to sustain quality of life, decrease neurologic impairment, and maintain or slow cognitive decline and function due to degenerative neurologic diseases. Musical interventions with adults with cognitive impairments have received increased attention over the past few years, such as the value of personalized music listening in the iPod project for AD (1); music as a tool to decrease agitation and anxiety in dementia (2); and music to aid in episodic memory (3); Rhythmic Auditory Stimulation as rehabilitation for PD (4); and recently the potential of 40 Hz sensory brain stimulation with AD and PD (5, 6).

Singing and Vocal Interventions in Palliative and Cancer Care: Music Therapists' Perceptions of Usage.

Background: Music therapists in palliative and cancer care settings often use singing and vocal interventions. Although benefits for these interventions are emerging, more information is needed on what type of singing interventions are being used by credentialed music therapists, and what goal areas are being addressed.

Objective: To assess music therapists' perceptions on how they use singing and vocal interventions in palliative and cancer care environments.

Short-Term Effects of Rhythmic Sensory Stimulation in Alzheimer's Disease: An Exploratory Pilot Study.

This study assessed the effect of stimulating the somatosensory system of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients at three stages of their illness with 40 Hz sound. In this AB cross-over study design, 18 participants (6 mild, 6 moderate, 6 severe) each participated in 13 sessions: one intake and 12 treatment. Treatment A consisted of 40 Hz sound stimulation and Treatment B consisted of visual stimulation using DVDs, each provided twice a week over 6 weeks for a total of 6 times per treatment.

A Survey Study of Pre-Professionals' Understanding of the Canadian Music Therapy Internship Experience.

Background: There is limited research to date on the clinical music therapy internship experience from the perspective of the pre-professional. Further study is required to advance this significant stage in clinician development, as it is an intense period when pre-professionals apply and integrate theoretical knowledge about music therapy into their clinical practice.

Objective: This study aimed to: (1) assess the skills, competence, comfort, concerns, issues, challenges, and anxieties of Canadian undergraduate students at two stages in the internship process (pre- and post-internship); and (2) examine whether these perceptions are consistent with published research on internship.

Development and efficacy of music therapy techniques within palliative care.

Music therapy is increasingly becoming an intervention used in palliative care settings around the globe. While the specialty of palliative care music therapy is relatively young having emerged in the late 1980s, there is a strong and growing body of evidence demonstrating its efficacy in assisting a variety of issues common at end-of-life. There are multiple music therapy techniques that are implemented with clients in palliative care and they can be categorized in four broad areas: receptive, creative, recreative and combined.

The use of music in facilitating emotional expression in the terminally ill.

The expression and discussion of feelings of loss and grief can be very difficult for terminally ill patients. Expressing their emotions can help these patients experience a more relaxed and comfortable state. This paper discusses the role of music therapy in palliative care and the function music plays in accessing emotion.