Musical resources for Palliative Creative Therapy (360G-CheshireCF-A572878)

St Ann's Hospice recently re-modelled their patient day therapy service, it is now called the Being You Centre (BYC), focussing on what’s important to patients and being themselves. They believe that an illness shouldn’t define anybody – they look past that and see a person, not just a patient or a diagnosis. Their ethos is to always treat people as the individuals that they are. Further to continuing Being You Centre service development, research indicates that patients can benefit from music based interventions. Benefits include; improve confidence, self-esteem, motivation, reduce depression – listening to music increases the amount of dopamine produced in the brain, reduce pain, anxiety management, relieve stress, positive impact on pulse, heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, may aid memory recall. Music itself is healing, and appeals to all cultures. People have a deep connection to music, the elements of music: rhythm, melody, tempo etc, are echoed in our physiology, functioning and being. St Ann's has a music therapist working with patients in the BYC and on inpatient units, and even virtually currently; a grant will provide musical instruments and equipment to conduct effective and constructive musical sessions and also to record sessions for families and memory boxes.