Music Therapy Part of Hospice Care

This article talks about the role of a hospice music therapist in Minnesota.

One of music therapist Julie Szamocki's patients is an elderly woman in the later stages of Alzheimer's disease.

The woman is unable to carry on a meaningful conversation anymore. When she does speak, it rarely has any relationship to the time or place she happens to be in.

Yet her memory for music remains largely unimpaired. And so last week, without the aid of a musical instrument, Szamocki began to sing a series of old-time songs with her patient, whose agile singing voice was soon harmonizing with her own.

In the hospice community, they call it being present in the moment, and it was clear that Szamocki had reached that moment with her patient, who was soon looking down the hallway and waving people to come over and listen.

"She was so pleased with herself, because she knew she was making this beautiful music, and she knew she was being successful," said Szamocki, who joined the staff at Seasons Hospice in September as the organization's first music therapist.

The American Music Therapy Association reports that there are 250 music therapists in the country whose practice is devoted to the terminally ill.