Resources & references

Depression, agitation, and wandering are common behaviors associated with dementia and frequently observed among nursing home residents. The results of this study suggest widespread use of music therapy in long-term care settings may be effective in reducing symptoms of depression and agitation.

Watch the music therapy journey of a young girl with cerebral palsy and blindness. Her mother tells the changes she witnesses in her daugther during music therapy sessions. Also, this video explains how music therapy is provided in Northen Ireland. The Royal National Institute for the Blind advocates for more music therary access for children in this country. 

This book, written by music therapist Guylaine Vaillancourt, is divided in two parts. This book is intended to make parents, educators and care-givers aware of how music and music therapy can benefit children. It also explains how the purposeful use of music by music therapy professionals can restore, maintain or enhance physical and psychological well-being of children. 
 

A comprehensive guide to music therapy with young children, providing a detailed examination of development from birth to age five, with theoretical perspectives and extensive scales of developmental milestones.
The author categorizes development within five levels. An expansive catalog of musical goals is provided for singing, playing, moving, and musical understanding within each level.

 Article describes research findings of music therapy with individuals recovering from a stroke or who are managing Parkinson's disease. This article discusses the use of music therapy for neurorehabilitation

This thesis details a qualitative study on music therapy process resulting in the new concept of musico-relational competence. The project began with an exploration of music processes in the context of outpatient adult psychiatry. An ethnographic and ethnomusicological approach to the analysis of the video data (including music analysis) is used, focusing on the meaning making process of participants in the study.

This video (in Spanish) includes an interview of Dr. Mark Ettenberger who works as a music therapist in Colombia. He explains what music therapist is, who can benefit, how it can be applied, and what are its therapeutic benefits.

Les Impatients is an organization that helps people who have mental health problems, offering art-based services. With Dany Bouchard, a certified music therapist, and people participating in his group music therapy sessions, the reporter Alexandre Courteau explored this discipline that is still not very well known. After one hour of musical improvisation, some participants accepted to share how music therapy has changed their life.

The objective of this phenomenological research is to document the experience of music therapists practicing in mental health with adults receiving services in community and hospital settings in Quebec. Reflections, recommendations, research ideas, and the results of interviews are presented here. It is hoped that this work will help to foster the use of music therapy practices in mental health, an innovative and creative approach.

This book is available in an official English edition by the Publisher.

This book, written by music therapist Guylaine Vaillancourt, is divided in two parts. This book is intended to make parents, educators and care-givers aware of how music and music therapy can benefit children. It also explains how the purposeful use of music by music therapy professionals can restore, maintain or enhance physical and psychological well-being of children.

See the record of the book Music, Music Therapy and Child Development
 

Entrainment is defined by a temporal locking process in which one system’s motion or signal frequency entrains the frequency of another system. This process is a universal phenomenon that can be observed in physical (e.g., pendulum clocks) and biological systems (e.g. fire flies). However, entrainment can also be observed between human sensory and motor systems. The function of rhythmic entrainment in rehabilitative training and learning was established for the first time by Thaut and colleagues in several research studies in the early 1990s. It was shown that the inherent periodicity of auditory rhythmic patterns could entrain movement patterns in patients with movement disorders (see for a review: Thaut et al, 1999). Physiological, kinematic and behavioral movement analysis showed very quickly that entrainment cues not only changed the timing of movement but also improved spatial and force parameters. Mathematical models have shown that anticipatory rhythmic templates as critical time constraints can result in the complete specification of the dynamics of a movement over the entire movement cycle, thereby optimizing motor planning and execution. Furthermore, temporal rhythmic entrainment has been successfully extended into applications in cognitive rehabilitation and speech and language rehabilitation, and thus become one of the major neurological mechanisms linking music and rhythm to brain rehabilitation. These findings provided a scientific basis for the development of Neurologic Music Therapy.

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.