​Palliative care is a very sensitive stage of a person’s life. Most people faced with an end-of-life prognosis will find it hard enough to cope, let alone the words to communicate their true inner feelings about their situation. It is a time filled with anxiety and intense pain, where sleep patterns are often disrupted and hours of pensiveness prevail.

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Music Therapy offers a space for communication, emotional expression​ and psychological support​​​​​​​​​​​ and introduces a sense of ease and comfort.​  It can help to promote expression of feelings​​​​​​​​​​ and reduce levels of anxiety ​and feelings of isolation ​​​​​​​​​​that occur during the final stages of life.​

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​​​Music Therapy has the capacity to comfort and support those affected by a terminal illness; it helps to reduce their anxiety and stress and improve their quality of life. Person-centred programmes are designed specifically to address the unique needs ​​​​​​​​​​of each client. 

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​Group Music Therapy allows participants to share common experiences, gain mutual support and reduce feelings of isolation. ​
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Research​​​​​​​​​​ has shown that music is sufficiently distracting ​​​​​​​​​​so as to give a welcome relief from both psychological distress and physical pain​​​​​​​​​​.

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​​Overall, Music Therapy in palliative care is used to:

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• Provide psychological support and a means to cope with feelings

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• Help decrease symptoms of depression

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• Facilitate self-expression

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• Decrease anxiety and fear

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• Aid relaxation and sleep

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• Reduce physical discomfort and pain perception

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• Stimulate communication

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• Promote group cohesion and mutual support

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• Enhance family support

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• Stimulate the senses

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• Provide comfort in difficult times​​​​​​​​​​ (e.g. listening to/singing familiar songs in an unfamiliar environment or uncertain situation).

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Lyric Analysis​

Familiar songs/lyrics often have a particular personal significance linked to times past or personal acquaintances. Discussing songs and their significant is used to promote communication and aids reminiscence and life review.

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Musical life review

Enables the person to reflect on themselves, capturing their life in a musical life story and helps people to work through issues, such as unresolved pain, grief, failures etc.

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Listening to live or recorded music​

Choosing a piece of music that communicates something of relevance or conjures up a strong identification or connection to people, can facilitate reminiscence and self-reflection, can give comfort and can provide a distraction from physical pain.

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Instrument play​

​This provides an additional medium for non-verbal communication, encourages creative self-expression and stimulates the senses.

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Singing

Singing has the capacity to lift moods and decrease levels of stress, agitation and depression.

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Movement to music

Movement occupies the mind, enhances a sense of calm and reduces stress and muscle tension.

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Song writing​

Putting self-scripted words to music encourages the expression of feelings, enables the person to leave messages for families/friends and gain a sense of achievement and pride. When undertaken in conjunction with family, it can unite in a very meaningful and lasting way. Song writing for self expression may also help meet a person’s bio-psycho-social and spiritual needs, as they approach the end of their life.