Agitation is a major issue for older adults with dementia. Older adults who have dementia with agitation often need more support services in order to ensure their safety. Two recent studies indicated that music therapy services may reduce the amount of agitation in older adults with dementia. Continue reading
Category Archives: Past Posts
Non-MT Research Snapshot – Autism
Keeping up with the non-MT research in any population can be a challenge of its own. Here is a snapshot of three studies in the non-mt research that may be of interest to MTs. Continue reading
MTRB at AMTA Research Poster Session Part 1
Poster presenters from several universities and clinicians featured at the AMTA Research Poster session, November 20, 2010.
MTRB Poster Session Feature – Autism
This edition of the MTRB features three research posters presented at the 2010 AMTA conference in Cleveland, Ohio with the specific focus of music therapy and children with autism spectrum disorder. Continue reading
MTRB at the AMTA 2010 conference – Research Winners
Dr. Burns
Two interviews with research award winners at the AMTA 2010 Conference in Cleveland, Ohio. We taped several interviews in November and feature Dr. Debra Burns from Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis and the IU Cancer Center won the AMTA Research and Publications Award. MTRB’s own Dr. Blythe LaGasse won the Arthur Flagler Fultz Research Award and is the interviewee!
MT for Children: Review of RCTs
Clinicians who work with children may be interested in two recent systematic reviews that examined Randomized Control Trials with child populations. Continue reading
MTRB Podcast #7: Clinicians as Researchers
In this episode of the MTRB Podcast, we discuss how clinicians can become active researchers, including different modes of presenting research, collaboration, and how conducting research augments music therapy practice. We finish with a note about autism and attention, the post from October 24th. First, a reminder that the AMTA conference in Cleveland, Ohio is a few weeks away!
Autism and Attention
Most of the research on children with autism is focused on their social skills and emotional awareness. Although these are major need areas for children with autism, these skills aren’t the only skills that come up as “needs” in the assessment. The ability to attend, follow-though with an exercise, and inhibit behaviors are also areas of need; however, there is less representation of these skills in the research literature. Today, MTRB will take a look at a review of literature on attention in autism and generalize this information into the music therapy clinic. Continue reading
MT for Arousal from Coma
Acquired brain injury may result in an altered level of consciousness including coma or a minimally conscious state. Different techniques have been attempted to help arouse a person in an altered state of consciousness. A new systematic review investigated different techniques represented in the research literature, including music therapy. Continue reading
Techniques for Improving NNS in Premature Infants
If you work with premature infants than you are probably familiar with efforts to increase Non-nutritive suck (NNS). Current research has shown that an external stimulus can increase NNS in infants, which may transfer into nutritive feeding and other gains. In this blog post we will take a look at two methods for increasing NNS: reinforcement and entrainment. Continue reading