Music Therapy

It all started when…

The Music Therapy Program is another great program that the Canmore & Area Health Care Foundation supports at the Canmore General Hospital. The program is offered to Golden Eagle View long-term care residents in the form of group and individual sessions, occurring twice weekly. 

Music therapy is a discipline in which credentialed professionals use music purposefully within therapeutic relationships to support development, health, and well-being. Music therapists use music safely and ethically to address human needs within cognitive, communicative, emotional, musical, physical, social, and spiritual domains. Given the global deterioration of cognitive functioning and the resulting emotional distress and social isolation experienced by individuals in dementia care, music therapy work with this population and others in long-term care often focuses on maintaining an individual’s emotional and social well-being, while also encouraging engagement in physical activity. Musical ability/awareness is one of the last functions to be compromised in an individual with dementia making it an effective intervention even in people with late-stage forms of the disease. 

To read the most recent impact report, click here.