Music Therapy Today - World Federation of Music Therapy

Musical Healing
When it comes to 18-year-old Ashley Crawford, who suffers from leuke-
mia, Schifano doesn't have to figure out what music she needs. She was
spelling it out to me: 'I wanna learn 'Ode to Joy.' Teach me 'Ode to Joy.' If
it was last thing she did on this planet that is what she wanted to do, that
was it. Give her that joy," Schifano says. For sick children well enough to
live at home but still needing check ups, Schifano is the first person they
meet in the hospital, even before their doctors "Children come in, kids
sign in, get blood drawn and go on to treatment area. That finger stick
room dictates what happens that day," Schifano says. If music therapy
only makes treatment less painful and sickness more bearable, it would
seem to be enough. But music therapy does more: it sometimes can save
lives. Just ask Dr. Mark Atlas, who heads the hospital's transplant unit,
where the survival rate for children is only 40 percent. "The children in
transplant tend to have difficulties with high blood pressure, both from
medications and from pain. Relaxation, enjoyment, good positive mental
state can help decrease blood pressure which actually improves their out-
come," Atlas explains.
Music can sometimes improve the outcome even with the youngest of the
young. Ashton Webster arrived a perilous 10 weeks early, weighing less
than one and a half pounds Up is bad; down is good in terms of the baby's
breathing. The more Schifano sang, the more Ashton's mother and hospi-
tal staff could see "down" All those differences were reason for hope said
Dr. Dennis Davidson, chief of the neonatal unit. "These small, premature
babies while they are in their hospital stay can develop neurologically,"
Davidson claims. "The sucking reflex becomes better, they gain weight
faster and ultimately they are out of the hospital faster."
Odds and ends - themes and trends 443