Music Therapy

Music therapy

Implementation of Music Therapy

An evidence based topic

Heron Garcia

November 28, 2011

The University of Texas at Brownsville

NURS 4519.81: Leadership in Professional Nursing

Introduction

By its nature, music therapy provides a noninvasive, patient-centered approach that addresses the patients' ever-changing needs as well as their strengths and abilities (Pawuk & Schumacher, 2010), therefore “music therapy is the behavioral science concerned with systematic application of music to produce relaxation and desired changes in emotions, behavior, and physiology” (Dossey & Keegan, 2009, p. 327). Difficult to understand, and perceived by every individual differently; pain encompasses a complex phenomenon that involves physical, psychologic, social, cultural, and environmental factors that interconnect and affect how the pain is perceived, managed, and evaluated (Manias, Bucknall, & Botti, 2005). In a study by Manias, Bucknall, & Botti, 2005, it was noted that nurses continue to rely on pharmacologic measures and tend to under administer analgesics. Whether patients suffer from acute or chronic pain, other measures must be explored to help alleviate the torment that individuals go through on a daily basis. Implementation on music therapy in conjunction with analgesics would be beneficial to individuals. It is thought that music therapy can act as a nursing intervention to relieve both physiological and psychological responses and increase comfort of patients (Chan, Chung, Chung, & Lee, 2009). Music is used in general hospitals to: alleviate pain in conjunction with anesthesia or pain medication: elevate patients' mood and counteract depression; promote movement for physical rehabilitation; calm or sedate, often to induce sleep; counteract apprehension or fear; and lessen muscle tension for the purpose of relaxation, including the autonomic nervous system (American Music Therapy Association, 1998-2011). This paper...