Music Therapy Research Paper

Since the official creation of the music therapy profession, it has been growing in popularity and acceptance. Music has been a type of therapy to many people for hundreds of years, but before research was done on the subject, no one knew just how much music affects them. Music is a huge part of many people’s lives as a hobby and career, but serves many more as a way of recovery. The results of music therapy are amazing, and are incomparable to any other kind of therapy. Music therapy as a career has always been around but has never been studied. Because of its endless opportunities in job placement and the advancements through research, music therapy has grown into something that helps a wide range of people from small children to brain injury …show more content…
“Music therapy - a type of expressive arts therapy that uses music to improve and maintain the physical, psychological, and social wellbeing of individuals - involves a broad range of activities, such as listening to music, singing and playing a musical instrument” (Music Therapy). In music therapy’s most basic form it uses music to reach non musical goals. This kind of therapy can improve people’s quality of life in just a few sessions. “Music therapy can help to relieve pain and reduce stress and anxiety for the patient, resulting in physiological changes, including: improved respiration, lower blood pressure, improved cardiac output, reduced heart rate, and relaxed muscle tension” (American Music). For some people, music therapy can be a combination of psychological and physical therapy in one. Improvements in these can be seen while a music therapy session is happening. These changes can be achieved by playing or listening to music and interacting with it. These methods can be coupled with typical psychotherapy session methods. In some ways music therapy is already in action before treatment even starts because of how people use music as a way a relieving …show more content…
“Neurologic music therapy is defined as the therapeutic application of music to cognitive, sensory, and motor function due to neurologic disease of the human nervous system” (Neurologic Music Therapy Training). NMT is the next step for music therapists that want to move further in their career and are interested in how music affects the brain. NMT is becoming more popular and is being taken more seriously than ever before due to the extreme amounts of research being done. “Neurologic Music Therapy can provide improvements in cognition for the following areas: Attention, Memory, Initiation, Executive Function, and Neglect” (Neurologic Music Therapy). NMT can be extremely useful in hospitals to help with aftercare of brain injury patients. It can also be very useful for the elderly. NMT can bring up past memories, help people learn how to speak again, and help them in their walking pace after issues of diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer's. Some of the greatest discoveries of NMT have been concerning everything it can do to the brain and in turn help patients to