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While Radio 4 was hosting MHA’s Music Therapy Appeal online after broadcast, my colleagues and I were spreading the word in Austria. I was joined by two other MHA Music Therapists, Ros Pendry and Clare Monckton, to share the findings of our recent research at the World Congress of Music Therapy.
 
We presented two papers and packed out the rooms – people had to sit on floors and there were plenty of questions! The research had been carried out with Prof Helen Odell-Miller of Anglia Ruskin University, and it suggested that music therapy could increase well-being twofold in people with dementia.
 
Music therapy has come a long way. This conference was much larger than the one I attended in South Korea three years ago. There are more papers on music therapy for people with dementia than there used to be as well, but I think there still needs to be more focus on music therapy and older people. Something else the field is starting to look towards is psychophysiology. This is looking at physiological responses in people to determine their psychological reactions. We used it, along with other methods, to gauge residents’ responses in our research.
 
Music therapy is young and there is still a lot of work to be done in researching it, especially in the cases of older people and people with dementia. I’m glad to be helping to advance knowledge and understanding of something so important through my work with MHA.

To donate to our Music Therapy Appeal, click here.
 
Ming Hung Hsu
 
Lead Music Therapist