Resources & references

This article explains how a music therapy support group was created to relieve some of the strain on caregivers by allowing for greater emotional support through relationships with peers and professionals, and through the increase of meaningful interactions with their loved ones with dementia. The community-based MT support group has been replicated twice within the region, and is a promising model for other communities. 

This study examined the processes and experiences involved in the introduction of music therapy as an adjunct complementary therapy to palliative care in a hospice setting in the United Kingdom (UK). Results: Music therapy contains multiple mechanisms that can provide physical, psychological, emotional, expressive, existential and social support. 

This qualitative study explores the lived experience of inter-active listening (IAL), an individualized music therapy experience in which the therapist plays music or sings while the patient engages through listening. The study found that a receptive music therapy referred to as IAL was associated, in cancer patients in an acute palliative care unit, with increased emotional and spiritual well-being and a greater sense of connection to self and others.

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 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 video features a presentation by Dr. Laurel Young, PhD, MTA, about music therapy in bereavement care. This presentation provides an overview of music therapy in bereavement care. Dr. Young will review existing literature and share examples from her own clinical work and research. She also makes recommendations for future practice and research. 

This book presents some of the work from music therapists working in different approaches, in different countries, showing how valuable the inclusion of music therapy in palliative care has already proved to be. It is important for the dying, or those with terminal illness, that approaches are used which integrate the physical, psychological, social and spiritual dimensions of their being. 

This video (in Spanish) includes interviews from Carla Navarro, Pedro Vinuesa, María Martínez-Gil, and Paula Ramirez who are music therapists in Spain. They explain what music therapy is, who can benefit, and how it can help people of all ages. Clients who received music therapy also describe how music therapy improved their life.