Cochrane Review Validates Music Therapy for Brain Injury

This Cochrane Review is basically a database for meta-analyses of research on different medical topics. What is a meta-analysis, you may ask? A meta-analysis is a review of research studies about a certain topic that compiles the data results from the different research studies and then evaluates the data results to find overall trends or significant findings. This month, the Cochrane Review published a meta-analysis of seven research studies involving music therapy and brain injury: Music therapy for acquired brain injury. The results of the meta-analysis showed that a certain kind of music therapy intervention, termed "Rhythmic Auditory Stimulation (RAS)," is an effective treatment for improving measures of walking. RAS is an acronym used to standardize the vocabulary and terminology for music therapy interventions such as using rhythm and tempo to affect gait training after brain injury from a stroke. RAS is a relatively new term from what is being called Neurologic Music Therapy (NMT). This movement within the field of music therapy seeks to do research that documents and explains how music psychologically and physiologically influences human behavior. The field of NMT has tried to codify and standardize much terminology such as "RAS."

The establishment of music therapy interventions in the Cochrane Review is important because the Review is often used as a reference when developing protocols for medical treatment. The Cochrane Review can also be used as supportive documentation for setting up music therapy as a reimbursable service. This latest publication regarding music therapy is a welcome development!