It has been used to reduce crying spells of children when they have been administered an injection. Transgenders turn to it as an anger management tool and ICU patients find it reassuring if they get a little bit of it by their bedside.
We are not talking of some new wonder molecule or magic bullet, but just a few notes of music that are now increasingly finding pride of place in the modern armamentarium of clinicians.
Clinicians, on their part, no longer see music therapy as apocryphal or esoteric. In fact, more doctors these days are confident of vouching for the tangible benefits of music therapy as a supplementary in the treatment of disorders, ranging from cancer to chronic depression. A music session can also greatly lower anxiety in patients anticipating a surgery.
The Mahatma Gandhi Medical College and Research Institute administered by Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth University is one of the few institutions in the country that has a well-entrenched music therapy programme. The Centre for Music Therapy Education and Research (CMTER) here is also said to be the first in the country to establish an outpatient department for music therapy.
The CMTER not only runs a structured inter-disciplinary programme for advancement of music therapy as a complementary sub-specialty, but also offers students clinical training in the form of a one-year postgraduate course in music therapy.
“Music therapy is not about patients putting on their headphones and listening to music, as soothing as the tunes may be. Here, music therapy is both art and science and very much evidence-based,” says Sumathy Sundar, CMTER chief and Director of the Chennai School of Music Therapy.
The students of the PG course are trained in “musicianship” to be clinical vocalists who engage patients in short sessions of singing a few simple notes. Student training involves sensitising them to different elements of music and to use music to connect with patients.
In its multifarious roles in the clinical setting, these music sessions are used as palliative, ameliorate anxiety or emotional difficulty of patients or simply to improve coping skills with a situation. Breathing exercises are interwoven with music modules which are mostly rendered as a refrain.
“The initial assessment of a patient as soon as he reports at the hospital is the all-important foundation that will determine the course of music therapy through the treatment process,” says Dr. Sundar.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to the use of music as its enjoyment is subjective, culture-specific and an anthropological variable. For instance, therapists have found that patients from the same demographic brackets have very different musical preferences.
The therapist puts together a musical profile based on the patient’s socio-economic mooring belief systems and cultural exposure. “Their taste for music is an important input for designing sessions,” a therapist said.
The CMTER coordinates with different departments to ensure referral of patients who are evaluated to benefit from exposure to music. The therapy itself is not a quick-fix solution but often extends to 10 to 15 sittings.
“Throughout, the patient response in terms of a set of physiological and behavioural parameters is recorded to generate empirical data,” says Dr. Sundar, who is also Chair, Education and Training Commission, World Federation of Music Therapy and founding member of the International Association for Music and Medicine.
Often, some music can be good for the care providers too. In a recent event, CMTER took their music to the ICU waiting area which has one of the most stressful environments in a hospital.
Students rendered live music for the caretakers with a few spiritual songs as well as the favourite melodies of the audience to lift the spirits of the caretakers.
