It uses music individualized to the patient's needs and delivered at the bedside with voice and harp. The goal of this unique program is palliative care, relief of the emotional, physical and spiritual pain of the dying and their loved ones. Deeply spiritual in intention and impact, this method of care is also very practical. It offers patients and their loved ones something meaningful and specific when medical interventions are no longer beneficial. It is particularly potent when individuals are most susceptible to being overwhelmed by the fear of death itself, or of abandonment or unmitigated pain.
Prescriptive music is designed to respond to the individual needs and symptoms of each patient.
Practitioners position themselves on either side of the dying patient and attentively work with musical deliveries to support and facilitate the unbinding process that is central to a conscious, peaceful, or blessed death. These clinical deliveries revolve around a body-systems phenomenology. Practitioners observe physiological changes in the patient's nervous, respiratory, circulatory, and metabolic systems. The musician-clinicians then surround and anoint the dying patient with music to stimulate or soothe specific processes in the physical body. This in turn affects emotional, mental, and spiritual dimensions in the individual.