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This is a high-quality randomised trial of music therapy specifically for depression and the results suggest that it can improve the mood and global functioning of people with this disorder.
Jun 28, 2008 · Findings suggested that music therapy helps patients to improve general symptoms, depression and anxiety symptoms, and level of functioning, and provided estimates of the effect per session, which can be used in power calculations for future studies.
- Jaakko Erkkilä, Christian Gold, Jörg Fachner, Esa Ala-Ruona, Marko Punkanen, Mauno Vanhala
- 10.1186/1471-244X-8-50
- 2008
- BMC Psychiatry. 2008; 8: 50.
Aug 17, 2024 · Music interventions can help to alleviate cognitive decline in older adults, especially when these activities are performed within a group. A recent meta-analysis found that music therapy reduces depression and anxiety symptoms, improves BP, and enhances cognitive function in older patients with depression. 123
Aug 1, 2023 · Music therapy has shown promise in providing a safe and supportive environment for healing trauma and building resilience while decreasing anxiety levels and improving the functioning of depressed individuals. 4 Music therapy is an evidence-based therapeutic intervention using music to accomplish health and education goals, such as improving ...
- Study Design
- Interventions
- Assessment
- Statistical Analyses and Data Management
Participants, recruitment, and the site
Participants will be recruited in central Finland through announcements placed in local newspapers. Our experience has shown that this approach is more effective than targeting only mental health clinics and psychiatric polyclinics. We will repeat the announcements as often as needed for reaching the recruitment target. The trial will be conducted at the Music Therapy Clinic for Training and Research, Department of Music, Art and Culture Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
Inclusion and exclusion criteria
As inclusion criteria, the participants must be between 18 and 55 years of age and have depression as their primary diagnosis (categories F32 and F33 of the ICD-10), assessed by the Montgomery–Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS). In addition, if it is diagnosed alongside the depression, participants with anxiety will also be included, as both pathologies present a high level of comorbidity. Musical skills or any form of musical background are not required; their presence, however, does not...
Trial design and hypotheses
The study is a randomised 2 × 2 factorial trial, in which the conditions are derived from either the presence or non-presence of listening homework (LH) and resonance frequency breathing (RFB). The design is presented in Table 1. All groups receive IIMT. In addition, one treatment group receives LH as an additional component, the second treatment group receives RFB as an additional component, and the third treatment group receives both of these as an additional component. A decrease in depres...
Overall intervention structure
The intervention phase consists of 6 weeks of music therapy, composed of 12 sessions, with two sessions per week (see Fig. 1). The length of each session is 60 min. The trial will not interfere with any concomitant treatments the clients may already be receiving or that may be required during the trial. The clients are informed of their right to leave the trial at any point without the need to give any justification. The content and working principles concerning IIMT and the additional compon...
Integrative improvisational music therapy
Integrative improvisational music therapy (IIMT) is used as the therapy model for all of the intervention conditions. IIMT is a model developed at our site and successfully employed in our previous RCT for depression . As described in the Introduction, the non-verbal expression and interaction of clinical improvisation typically leads to the emergence of abstract and unshaped mental contents, often accompanied by emotional loading. The evoked emotions, emotional memories, images, meta...
Added component: listening homework
LH will be conducted as an activity carried out outside the therapy context, in the client’s own time. This activity can be described as homework, which is a known practice particularly in cognitive and behavioural psychotherapies. In that field, two meta-analyses [45, 47] have been conducted, showing that homework compliance is significantly related to the therapeutic outcome, with the effect size varying from small to medium. What is important to our study is the fact that, according to the...
The outcome measures of the RCT are described in the following. Overall, there are three measurement points: during the recruitment of the participants (baseline); 6 weeks after the beginning of the intervention (post intervention); and 6 months after the beginning of the intervention (follow-up). Our time point of primary interest is the post inte...
The statistical analyses will follow an intention-to-treat approach, using all available data regardless of whether the treatment was received as intended. Furthermore, in the event of missing outcome data, participants will remain in the analysis if at least one follow-up time point is available. Sensitivity analysis will be conducted with multipl...
- Jaakko Erkkilä, Olivier Brabant, Suvi Saarikallio, Esa Ala-Ruona, Martin Hartmann, Nerdinga Letulė, ...
- 2019
Dec 9, 2021 · Maladaptive music engagement increased the odds of experiencing all the depression symptoms (OR = 1.04 to 1.14). Trait positive affect (r = .29) and having music as a hobby (r = .22) correlated with adaptive music engagement.
Jun 22, 2021 · For individuals who experience severe problems (e.g., MDD, SUDs), engaging with music may reduce symptoms or improve treatment outcomes. This is the primary goal of most music...
