Virtual Reality and Music Therapy for Spinal Cord Injury
Music therapy (MT) has been proven to reduce stress and anxiety, promote relaxation, enhance quality of life, and help manage pain. MT involves various techniques like therapeutic singing, music-assisted relaxation, and creative self-expression through music. Furthermore, studies have demonstrated that MT improves cognition and functional abilities in patients suffering from memory loss due to dementia.
Virtual reality has been proven to be an effective tool for providing music therapy sessions to patients with brain injuries and strokes. It creates an immersive virtual environment similar to a musical performance, encouraging greater interaction and engagement during the therapy session.
This study sought to determine the effects of a VR-based music therapy session on patients with spinal cord injury’s health and well-being. It is a randomized controlled trial with a control group, measuring variables such as pain, fatigue, drowsiness, nausea, loss of appetite, depression, anxiety levels, sleep patterns and heart rate.
This study revealed that VR-based music therapy sessions significantly improved participants’ moods and reduced stress, anxiety, fatigue and depression as measured by multiple measures. Furthermore, these results suggest the VR-based music therapy sessions could potentially serve as a viable treatment option for individuals living with spinal cord injury.
As awareness of music therapy and its potential benefits for those living with spinal cord injuries grows, interest in using virtual reality to deliver it has also grown. This technology promises to enhance patients’ experiences of receiving this form of care while at the same time decreasing their health-related expenses.
One major advantage of VR-based music therapy program is that it can be delivered on a mobile phone. This makes it accessible to those with limited access to traditional physical therapy services. Furthermore, sessions can be conducted remotely at home or in the hospital.
Another advantage of the VR-based music therapy program is its multimodal sensory approach to client engagement. This encourages greater motivation, self-expression and participation from patients while decreasing communication time during sessions.
A randomized clinical trial to compare the effects of music therapy and virtual reality on palliative care patients’ health and well-being has been conducted.
Music and other music-based interventions are frequently employed to help reduce stress, anxiety, and depression in cancer and chronic illness patients. This practice is especially helpful for those suffering from terminal or degenerative illnesses that can exacerbate these symptoms, causing significant distress to both patients and their family members. VR-based music therapy program is one of the few approaches that addresses these problems at their source rather than simply masking them with a placebo drug.
Though VR-based music therapy is increasingly becoming popular, research into its potential to improve overall health and well-being for those living with cancer or other diseases remains limited. This study serves as a first step in this direction.