Resources & references

This article describes different techniques, interventions and outcomes of teens during cancer treatment. They describe how writing lyrics, making videos helped them get through grueling treatment and connect with others, study found.

Research article about how neurologic music therapy can enhance neurorehabilitation among stroke patients, traumatic brain injury, autistic individuals, and those with learning disabilities.

After 35 years in the field of information technology followed by some time in politics, Suzanne Caron became a music therapist and founded the National Music Therapy Institute. Its mission is to raise awareness of and facilitate access to music therapy. A number of steps had to be completed before the dream of launching this Institute could become a reality —a process that demonstrated the importance of a determined, flexible, and creative approach. The COVID-19 pandemic— a tragedy in many respects—led the Institute to explore music therapy online for autistic people and family caregivers, and to develop training that would facilitate the transition for music therapists across Canada. The future looks promising for this Institute, whose story has yet to unfold.

An article about Katie Fitzpatrick, who has dedicated her education and career to music therapy and is blazing a trail in the treatment of chronic pain.

This article summarizes findings from a research article that explores the musical skills required to be a music therapist. Findings were gathered based on the opinions of a dozen music therapists in the United States and have implications for the education and  training of future music therapists.

Click here to read the research study referenced in this article.

This article provides recommendations for music therapy practice and research among individuals with chronic pain using sickle cell disease as an exemplar condition. The research on music therapy for chronic pain management has shown that music therapy is particularly helpful in improving people's pain-related self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is well recognized to play an essential role in effective management of chronic pain.

This article discusses the positive benefits on well-being of adding music therapy to kangaroo care, which stresses the importance of skin to skin touch for preterm infants.

This is a summary of a study, which reveals promising findings for the application of improvisational music therapy in assuaging the multidimensional acute pain of adult patients with sickle cell disease (SCD). 

This document describes how music therapy can benefit elderly and their caregivers. It explains what music therapy is, its affordability and accessibility in Australia, and how it can improve the quality of life among adults with dementia, anxiety, depression, and neurodegenerative diseases.

This article describes work by music therapists to support patients in medically assisted dying, and discusses the role music therapy can play ofr individuals with these needs

This study assessed the effects of 12 weeks of school counselor-led drumming on social-emotional behavior in two fifth-grade intervention classrooms versus two standard education control classrooms. The weekly intervention integrated rhythmic and group counseling activities to build skills, such as emotion management, focus and listening. Participation in group drumming led to significant improvements in multiple domains of social-emotional behavior.

This story explores the research of Jorien Habing, a master’s student in Music Therapy at the ArtEZ, University of the Arts, who is one of the few music therapists in the Netherlands working with people with visual impairments. She explains: "Music therapy plays a role in facilitating the acceptance process of blindness." For her final research, Jorien examined the role of songwriting to help individuals in this new target population adjust to living with visual impairment.