Winter scheduled sessions with a music therapist to coincide with her treatments at the Ireland Cancer Center in Cleveland. Her therapist brought along an electronic keyboard, sang soothing songs and played classical compositions chosen by Winter. When you're anxious, your whole body is tense and you feel more pain. I don't know how I would have gone through that without the music therapy. It was a long, dark tunnel, and the music therapy helped bring some light to it.
Winter is among a growing number of people who are tapping into the healing powers of music.
Health care professionals recognize its value too, embracing a new modality music therapy for an array of medicinal purposes, from helping to ease anxiety to helping stroke victims in physical rehabilitation. Music therapy has been shown to be valuable in pain reduction, coping with stress, easing depression, aiding memory loss and stimulating the immune system, according to the American Music Therapy Association. It is used in conjunction with conventional medicine, functioning largely as a psychological aid. Music therapy can involve rhythmic drumming, singing, instrument playing, or listening to recorded or live music experiences that engage a person musically and socially. Deforia Lane, Ph.D., director of music therapy for University Hospitals Health System in Cleveland and associate director of the Ireland Cancer Center, started that institution's music therapy program 15 years ago, after she was diagnosed with breast cancer and used music to aid in her own recovery.