Do you know the difference between music therapy and music medicine? In a nutshell, music therapy is active music making between a music therapist and a patient, where a relationship is formed and non-musical goals are met using music therapy, Music medicine is a prescribed, passive intervention. In the case of Surgical Serenity Solutions, the patient going into surgery or another stressful medical/dental procedure, is prescribed or given a therapeutic playlist on cordless headphones. The patient chooses their preferred genre of music.
Music as a healing intervention is getting a lot of attention these days! But some people use the terms interchangeably and they are definitely not the same. Because of all the confusion going on, I decided to make an easy-to-read chart so that you can know immediately which you want to use.
This chart is useful both for medical facilities and patients. Please note that music therapists can also prescribe music medicine especially for patients that they can’t get to in a day’s work.
Click the chart to open the PDF, which you can download if you want.
There is a lot of information here! Please leave a comment if you have any questions at all.
I think that neither patients nor doctors/nurses understand this well enough to make the right choices, so it’s a valuable chart.