{"id":1004268,"date":"2024-06-10T12:37:45","date_gmt":"2024-06-10T17:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/pruettgerontology\/?p=1004268"},"modified":"2024-05-07T12:47:52","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T17:47:52","slug":"benefits-of-music-therapy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/pruettgerontology\/2024\/06\/10\/benefits-of-music-therapy\/","title":{"rendered":"Benefits of Music Therapy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Written by <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hansen Penya\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Music. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It\u2019s something that most people experience frequently over the course of their lives. Whether it be on car rides, in the gym, in the shower, while cooking a meal or performing other mundane tasks (such as mowing the lawn), or even in the worship portions of church services, music is often present. While it has changed throughout history, music (like other forms of art) has nevertheless existed as a form of human expression for thousands of years. Music allows us to be \u201cin touch\u201d with parts of our beings that other mediums can\u2019t provide to the same degree\u2014we can find joy in the melody of a classical-period symphony or relate to storytelling that lies in a modern pop heartbreak track. It should come as no surprise, then, that <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">music was added as a form<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">of therapy in the last few hundred years.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>What is music therapy? <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">American Music Therapy Association<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">defines it as the \u201cclinical &amp; evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals.\u201d And, because music can be appreciated for the entirety of one\u2019s life, the benefits of music therapy are not exclusive to a single age group. When considering the aging population, music therapy has proven useful in several capacities. For example, music therapy has the ability to<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cdelay the onset of cognitive decline\u2026as well as helping those<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">who already suffer from it.\u201d<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Specifically, music therapy has been shown to <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">help treat<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Alzheimer\u2019s and dementia<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, as well as helping to<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">improve symptoms of depression<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The next question, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">then, is: how can people introduce music as a form of therapy to the aging population? While there are formal methods of doing so, such as encouraging elderly adults to attend sessions with a licensed music therapist, the <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Elder<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Care Alliance offers several (less formal) ways<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">for music to be integrated into elderly people\u2019s lives. Among them are:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> [Creating] a personalized playlist on a program like Spotify or Amazon Music that includes familiar music or music that inspires different moods like relaxation or motivation.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> [Attending] live concerts or performances. Live music is often available for free in parks and other venues that provide community entertainment.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> [Picking] up that abandoned instrument that you used to play and get familiar with it again. Playing music has the same benefits that listening to music does and keeps you even more cognitively engaged.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> [Getting] familiar with YouTube. Not only will you be able to find music that reminds you of younger days, but you\u2019ll be able to find videos of live performances as well. <\/span><b>While it may be overlooked <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">as a simple feature of human life, music provides <\/span>far more benefits than people may realize. Music therapy is a great tool that has proven useful in assisting the aging population and, just as with any other segment of the population, we should make it our mission to provide elderly people with tools they can use to live their lives as comfortably as possible.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Written by Hansen Penya\u00a0 Music. It\u2019s something that most people experience frequently over the course of their lives. Whether it be on car rides, in the gym, in the shower, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25471,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[86857,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1004268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gero-student-focus","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/pruettgerontology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/pruettgerontology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/pruettgerontology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/pruettgerontology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25471"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/pruettgerontology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1004268"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/pruettgerontology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1004269,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/pruettgerontology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004268\/revisions\/1004269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/pruettgerontology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1004268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/pruettgerontology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1004268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/pruettgerontology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1004268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}