Resources & references

This article explores the efficacy of music therapy interventions in palliative care and their therapeutic impact on physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

Agitation in nursing home residents with dementia leads to a decrease in quality of life and an increase in psychotropic medication, patient distress, and caregiver burnout. This study shows that after six weeks, music therapy reduced agitation disruptiveness and prevented medication increases for persons with moderate to severe dementia.

This video (in Spanish) presents a child with a neurologic disorder who received music therapy services in Spain. It includes interviews from the child's mother, the music therapist, and a music therapy student.

This systematic review indicates that music interventions compared to standard care may have beneficial effects on anxiety, depression, hope, pain, and fatigue in adults with cancer. The results of two trials suggest that music interventions may have a beneficial effect on anxiety in children with cancer. For several outcomes, music therapy interventions delivered by a trained music therapist led to consistent results across studies. The abstract is available in many languages. 

This video features an individual who was paralyzed due to a motor vehicle collision and participated in music therapy sessions in a hospital in Alberta, Canada. The video includes clips of music therapy sessions, testimonials from the patient, and interviews from certified music therapists.

This article explains how music therapy can help people cope with grief in a variety of ways. It can help create connection with a deceased loved one. It can help those grieving to explore spirituality (hope and meaning in life) and deal with challenging emotions. Many people have an intimate connection to the songs that have helped them through bereavement.

This brief entry is a summary of a peer-reviewed article. It explains succinctly what is music therapy in palliative care. 

This fact sheet from the American Music Therapy Association provides information about music therapy practices for adults with mental health and substance use challenges. This page provides information on relevant definitions and statistics, the types of mental health settings in which music therapists work, potential outcomes of music therapy, contraindications for music therapy, the clinical process, and effectiveness research.

This article investigates the therapeutic effects of music therapy for individuals in palliative care facing physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual challenges.

This video presents music therapy sessions at the Grey Nuns Community Hospital in the Tertiary Palliative Care Unit led by Sheila Killoran, certified music therapist (Canada).

The objectives of the study were: i) to describe the characteristics and effectiveness of music therapy interventions which aim to improve health-related outcomes for adult informal carers of adults with life-threatening illness, and ii) to describe the experience of music therapy for adult informal carers of adults with life-threatening illness. Conclusion: qualitative studies provide moderate to strong evidence for improved health-related outcomes for adult informal carers of adults with life-threatening illness pre-bereavement. 

Leticia Prieto Alvarez, a music therapist at Hebrew Senior Life in the United States,  explains the benefits of music therapy for older adults and provides examples of active music therapy experiences in group and individual settings.