Hospital offers new music therapy for patients
Music therapy is now available at Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital, providing patients with a clinically-based therapy offering a wide range of benefits, including improving movement, increasing treatment engagement from the patient, and providing emotional support for patients and their families.
Music therapist Stephanie Kleba said it was a request from the community that helped launch and support the music therapy program at the hospital, which officially started on April 2.
"The response has been very good," Kleba says. "The on-site therapist is shared through many different populations on campus, and referrals are starting to grow."
How music therapy works
Music therapy is the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program.
Research in music therapy supports its effectiveness in many areas, such as:
• Overall physical rehabilitation and facilitating movement
• Increasing people's motivation to become engaged in their treatment
• Providing emotional support for patients and their families
• Support for communication and cognition
After assessing the strengths and needs of each patient, the music therapist provides a treatment plan, including creating, singing, moving to and/or listening to music.
Through musical involvement in the therapeutic context, the abilities of patients are strengthened and transferred to other areas of their lives. Music therapy also provides avenues for communication that can be helpful to those who find it difficult to express themselves in words.
Music therapy requires a four-year degree with options for a master's degree. It requires 1,200 hours of clinical training, most of which is accomplished through internship, followed by a board examination. Music therapists are recertified every five years by obtaining 100 continuing education credits.
"Music therapy may appear to be just playing soothing music at the bedside," Kleba says. "But there is much more to it. It's a clinical tool, a non-pharmaceutical way to relieve pain, address anxiety, aid memory, help with breathing and so much more. It is not going to do everything for everyone, but it certainly has shown great value to our patients."
With more research behind it, people are now understanding why music makes us feel better, Kleba added.
"Music therapy shows positive effects with pain management, heart rates, respiration, mood, anxiety, movement and communication. And it can help us think more clearly," she says. "This is the purposeful use of music to obtain functional outcomes. We are clinicians, using music as a tool to achieve certain results."
Music therapy is used to address:
• Pain management
• Rehabilitation
• Confusion
• Agitation
• Anxiety management
• Psychosocial support/coping
• Procedural support
• Spiritual support
• Rest/sleep
• Sensory stimulation
• Respiratory support
• Family support
Caitlin Broderick, who serves as the on-site music therapist at Lake Forest Hospital, says that both patients and hospital staff have been receptive to the program.
"In just the first few weeks since the launch of the program here, I have seen how music therapy has helped play a role in lowering a patient's blood pressure, helping an agitated patient fall asleep, and witnessed the spouse of a patient singing a love song to his wife while she rested in bed," Broderick said. "I am already seeing an increase in referrals, and look forward to providing patients with another healing option during their hospital stay."
Music therapy is often practiced in oncology, rehabilitation, hospice, mental health and the neonatal intensive care units.
To learn more about Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital, call (847) 234-5600. For more information about Northwestern Medicine, visit news.nm.org/about-northwestern-medicine.html.