Resources & references

 This video shows examples of music therapy sessions and perspectives from music therapists and the Children's Hospital in Boston, MA.

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 reference book offers a  comprehensive look at the use of music therapy with elderly and those living with dementia based on the research and experience of experts from around the world. It can serve as a resource for caregivers and families of individuals with dementia or Alzheimer's disease and for music therapists.

See examples of how music therapy has been used in dementia care: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeksM6zRzS4&t=120s 

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.

In this video, an incredible family shares their story of how Music Therapy at Camp Kerry improved their lives after the death of their loved one.

This research article evaluated how music therapy can help children, teenagers, and young adults with cancer and blood disorders. It determined that music therapy is highly beneficial to have in an interdisciplinary team to manage symptoms and provide psychosocial care. 

This study aims to assess the effectiveness of music therapy versus standard care alone or standard care in combination with other therapies for improving psychological, physiological and social outcomes among adult patients in any palliative care setting. Findings suggest that music therapy may be effective for helping to reduce pain in palliative care patients. 

This video features an interview with Utah Music Therapist Heather Fellows, SCMT, MT-BC. She discusses the ways in which music therapy can assist those faced with  grief to learn how to process, cope and walk through the journey of bereavement.

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 central impairments of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affect social interaction and communication. Music therapy uses musical experiences and the relationships that develop through them to enable communication and expression, thus attempting to address some of the core problems of people with ASD. The present version of this review on music therapy for ASD is an update of the original Cochrane review published in 2006. The findings of this updated review provide evidence that music therapy may help children with ASD to improve their skills in social interaction, verbal communication, initiating behaviour, and social-emotional reciprocity. Music therapy may also help to enhance non-verbal communication skills within the therapy context. Furthermore, in secondary outcome areas, music therapy may contribute to increasing social adaptation skills in children with ASD and to promoting the quality of parent-child relationships.