MHTP press room
May 5, 2020
For Immediate Release
Certified Music Practitioners (CMPs) Continue to Provide Live Therapeutic Music for Individual Patients During COVID-19
Even a pandemic cannot stop CMPs’ years of service to others through music, and they will continue to help ill and dying patients after COVID-19 is subdued.
Twenty-six years ago, the international not-for-profit, Music for Healing & Transition ProgramTM, Inc. (MHTP) formed, to train and certify musicians in the art and science of therapeutic music. Since then, MHTP graduates, called Certified Music Practitioners (CMP)® have brought the healing power of live therapeutic music (NOT music therapy) to the bedside of individual patients across the US and other countries.
When hospitals and other medical facilities rightfully asked many of their complementary healthcare providers to stay at home when COVID-19 hit, it soon became apparent to some medical professionals that CMPs were essential for the well-being of patients and their families, and for the beleaguered medical staff, and asked them to find ways to continue their work.
Rising to the challenge, some CMPs adapted enhanced hospital infection control protocols for live, in-person sessions for individual COVID and non-COVID patients and staff. Others added live, virtual means to play therapeutic music for individual patients, at the patient’s bedside and for staff. For virtual music, Zoom, FaceTime, YouTube, and Facebook are the primary platforms, with CMPs playing live in their homes and hospital staff or family members “carrying” them to patients’ rooms via various devices.
Patients, and staff report that even remotely, the caring attentiveness of the trained CMP and the specific therapeutic music provided are powerful in ability to soothe and comfort. CMPs themselves feel and observe the benefit of the live virtual therapeutic music.
Please contact executivedirector@mhtp.org for MHTP’s Acting Executive Director, Carol Spears, for a contact list of CMPs doing this work. These CMPs have agreed to be interviewed, as have staff at their medical facilities, including video or photo opportunities of live therapeutic music at the bedside of patients.
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ABOUT MHTP
Established in 1994, the Music for Healing and Transition Program, Inc. (MHTP), is one of the oldest organizations that trains and certifies musicians in the art and science of providing therapeutic music for body,mind, and spirit. MHTP recognizes the transformative power of music as a therapeutic enhancement to the healing process and the life/death transition. MHTP is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization that is funded solely from tuition and donations.
MHTP MISSION STATEMENT
We train and certify musicians to provide personalized live therapeutic music at the bedside to create a healing environment.
MHTP VISION STATEMENT
Personalized, live, therapeutic music, provided by a Certified Music Practitioner (CMP), is recognized as an essential service within the healthcare system.
FAQs
How does the work of a CMP differ from the variety of volunteer musicians providing virtual music during the COVID-19 pandemic?
CMPs have successfully completed an intensive, multi-year training and certification through the Music for Healing and Transition Program (MHTP).
CMPs are trained by MHTP in the art of being a healing presence with patients, focusing on the patient’s condition and needs to be of service in the moment. CMPs are not playing entertainment, they do not enter into a patient’s room and play a pre-determined set of songs that are the same for each patient.
CMPs are trained to assess the patient’s physical and emotional condition and apply therapeutic music that, through research, has shown to be the most effective in supporting the patient’s own abilities to stabilize his/her condition.
Throughout the session CMPs continue to observe and change the music if necessary to continue to support the changing needs of the patient.
CMPs are trained in hospital protocol, such as HIPAA, universal precautions in infection control, and documenting their sessions in the patient’s plan of care chart.
CMPs are employed typically as independent contractors, are familiar with hospital staff and patients on a long-time basis, have been trained in specific regulations of their hospital, and work as a team member along other healthcare personnel.
How does therapeutic music differ from music therapy? This is an essential distinction to be made when reporting on the work of a Certified Music Practitioner—CMPs are not music therapists and do not provide music therapy. They are titled CMPs and provide therapeutic music.
From the National Standards Board of Therapeutic Music (NSBTM) website: The music therapist uses musical instruments and music making as therapeutic tools primarily to rehabilitate the normal functions of living and improve quality of life through studying and promoting measurable changes in behavior. A therapeutic musician uses the artistic application of the intrinsic elements of live music and sound to provide an environment conducive to the human healing process.
From the American Music Therapy Association’s website: Music Therapy is the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program.
On the MHTP website: What is a Certified Music Practitioner?
On the MHTP website: What is Therapeutic Music?
CMPs complete an intensive, multi-year training and certification program. The certification is not a college degree, whereas music therapists hold a bachelor’s degree or higher in music therapy.
The work of a CMP does not involve setting objectives for outcomes from a session, rather it is in-the-moment comfort care to help provide a healing environment for the patient.
CMPs do not require a patient to interact with the CMP; e.g., does not conduct music-making with the patient.
How long and in what capacity have CMPs been doing this kind of work?
MHTP’s first graduates finished the program in 1996.
CMPs work in hospitals, hospice, nursing homes, long-term care facilities, in patient’s private homes, veterinary hospitals and other medical care facilities.
CMPs can be found in all areas of a hospital, from Emergency Departments to pre-and post-surgical, NICU, dementia and cognitively impaired units, to hospice.
MHTP is accredited by, and a founding member of the National Standards Board of Therapeutic Music.
What kinds of responses do CMPs see in patients when they provide therapeutic music sessions?
CMPs are not doing anything invasive to patients. Patients receive the music passively. This by itself is such a welcome for patients. They have control to say no, they can sit back and relax, or watch the CMP.
A very typical response that CMPs see is patient’s falling asleep. Even patients who have been highly anxious or in pain will relax and fall asleep. Sleep is essential for the human body and mind to repair itself and to support the immune system. Unfortunately, the sounds and activities in a hospital, or the patient’s own anxiety, will rob the patient of sleep. Therapeutic music applied by a trained professional CMP may elicit the great benefits of sleep.
Stabilization of a patient’s vital signs (heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, blood oxygen levels) is a common response in patients who are acute.
Music for Healing & Transition Program: www.mhtp.org
Contact: Carol J. Spears, CEO executivedirector@mhtp.org
(440) 463-5262