Resources & references

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 interdisciplinary book guides the reader through principles, techniques, and exercises for incorporating music into grief counseling, with the end goal of further empowering the grieving person. Music has a unique ability to elicit a whole range of powerful emotional responses in people - even so far as altering or enhancing one's mood - as well as physical reactions. The book uses musical expression to help the bereaved find meaning in loss and hurt, and move forward with their lives. 

 Music therapy has positioned itself squarely within the medical model of disability, arguing that many sorts of human variability should be understood as illnesses, diseases, or other sorts of pathological medical conditions, and offering music as a source of normalization, remediation, and therapy toward a possible cure. But for many human conditions, including autism, cure is neither possible nor desirable. Instead of seeking to normalize autistic people, music therapy might instead acknowledge their distinctive sorts of musical interests and attitudes and offer to enhance their indigenous culture in an atmosphere of mutual respect. Instead of normalization and cure, music therapists might seek enhanced self-expression, knowledge, and pleasure through mutual music-making.

Pain is one of the most common and difficult symptoms to manage in adult burn patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). This systematic review and meta-analysis provide an update of Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) using music therapy or music medicine interventions with adult burn patients. It provides preliminary evidence for the effectiveness of music interventions this population. However, more high-quality RCTs are needed to establish guidelines.

This research paper offers a theoretical perspective of recovery as an integral part of modern mental health services. It presents the views of four music therapy researchers situated in Australia, Ireland, Norway, and the United Kingdom. This article elaborates on the implications of music therapy as a recovery-oriented practice and includes recommendations to maximize support for recovery of mental health patients.

This book has been designed as a textbook on music therapy for pediatric and adult patients receiving hospice care; it is divided into 4 parts. Part I is designed to provide foundational information on hospice and hospice music therapy. Part 2 includes descriptions of theory, assessment, roles of the therapist, and developmental issues in practice. Part 3 is focused on educational and professional issues. Part 4 is focused on advancing hospice music therapy. 

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. 

 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.

This is a Cochrane Review (intervention) addressing music therapy for people with substance use disorders. The objective was to compare the effect of music therapy in addition to standard care versus standard care alone, or to standard care plus an active control intervention, on psychological symptoms, substance craving, motivation for treatment, and motivation to stay clean/sober. The review outlines the search methods, selection criteria, data collection and analysis, results, and the authors' conclusions.

Music therapy is increasingly being used as an intervention for stress reduction in both medical and mental healthcare settings. Music therapy is characterized by personally tailored music interventions initiated by a trained and qualified music therapist, which distinguishes music therapy from other music interventions, such as ‘music medicine’, which concerns mainly music listening interventions offered by healthcare professionals. To summarize the growing body of empirical research on music therapy, a multilevel meta-analysis was performed to assess the strength of the effects of music therapy on both physiological and psychological stress-related outcomes, and to test potential moderators of the intervention effects. Results showed that music therapy showed an overall medium-to-large effect on stress-related outcomes.

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. 

This study employed an online survey to investigate current approaches, clinical interventions, and outcome measures used by music therapists working with young children with acquired communication impairments (ACIs)  to address language- and communication-oriented goals. Among the diverse range of interventions employed by music therapists, song singing, vocal improvisation, and music and play emerged as the most effective techniques for supporting individuals with ACIs in achieving their goals.