MHA Music Therapy team wins Laing Buisson Excellence in Dementia Care Award

Representatives of MHA's Music Therapy team, including Lead Music Therapist Ming Hung Hsu (second from left), accept the Laing Buisson award from Michael Portillo at the gala event in London

12 November 2015

MHA is delighted to have won the Laing Buisson Excellence in Dementia Care Award for its work with music therapy. Some 13 candidates had been shortlisted for the title, making it the most hotly contested award of the evening.

The interactive therapy enables people with dementia to express themselves and engage with their surroundings. Research carried out by MHA together with Anglia Ruskin University shows that it has demonstrable benefits to wellbeing. Family and friends frequently comment on how much more expressive and communicative their loved ones with dementia become once they begin the therapy, and how it eases stress and agitation. There is even evidence to suggest that music therapy could reduce or eliminate the need for medication.

We already provide the therapy without charge, funding it from charitable donations, but we want to provide it more and more frequently, to more and more people with dementia. The population is ageing and more and more people will need music therapy in the future. Please support our Stimulating Minds campaign so we can continue expanding our provision of this wonderful therapy to people with dementia.