Music Therapy
What a registered music therapist does, how it differs from a singalong, and where the trial evidence in dementia, stroke, autism and palliative care is strong or thin.
- Music Therapy in Palliative Care: What It Is For, and Why It Is Hard to Measure
June 16, 2026
Hospices employ music therapists for reasons that do not fit an outcome scale. What the work involves, and the measurement problem behind it.
- Training as a Music Therapist: The Postgraduate Route and What It Demands
June 4, 2026
A masters, supervised placements, personal therapy, and a very small profession at the end of it. What the UK and US routes each demand.
- Music Therapy for Autistic Children: Outcome Measures and the Framing Argument
May 22, 2026
What counts as a good result has changed, and autistic adults have had a great deal to say about it. Why no effect size appears on this page.
- Music Therapy for Depression and Anxiety in Adults: Where the Evidence Sits
May 15, 2026
Adult mental health is the use people assume is best evidenced. It is not, and the reasons are comparators, blinding and who reaches a trial.
- Dementia Choirs and Singing Groups: What They Offer and What Has Been Measured
May 4, 2026
I run two of these. What a good one looks like from the inside, and why the research behind them is thinner than the coverage suggests.
- Personalised Playlists for Dementia: A Headphones Intervention, Not a Therapy
April 28, 2026
A tablet, a pair of headphones and songs from someone's twenties. What that is, how to build one carefully, and why it is not music therapy.
- Music Therapy After Stroke: Walking, Speech and Mood, Graded Separately
April 17, 2026
One outcome after stroke has strong trial evidence and the rest do not. Keeping gait velocity apart from the claims that travel alongside it.
- Music Before Surgery: An Unusually Clean Result on an Unusually Soft Outcome
April 15, 2026
Twenty six trials, 2,051 patients, anxiety 5.72 STAI-S units lower. Why this review carries no certainty rating, and what that omission means.
- Music Therapy for Dementia: What the 2025 Cochrane Review Actually Found
April 10, 2026
Thirty studies, 1,720 people randomised, a small effect on low mood and none on agitation. The 2025 review in full, including the row nobody quotes.
- Rhythmic Auditory Stimulation: The Strongest Evidence in Arts and Health
April 9, 2026
Gait velocity 11.34 m/min faster across 9 trials and 268 people. What the trials measured, who it suits, and why the unit must not be converted.
- How to Find a Music Therapist: Registers, Referrals and What to Ask
April 6, 2026
Start at a statutory register rather than a search engine. Routes country by country, NHS and school access, fees, and what to ask first.
- What Happens in a Music Therapy Session: The Room, the Instruments and the Hour
April 5, 2026
Quieter and slower than most people expect. What an assessment covers, why improvisation dominates, and what the therapist writes down afterwards.
- Music Therapy: What It Is, Who Delivers It, and What the Trials Show
April 1, 2026
A registered music therapist is not a visiting singer. What the protected title means, and where the trial evidence is strong, thin, or actually null.
- Music Therapy or a Singing Group: How to Tell Which One You Are Being Offered
March 27, 2026
Both can help, only one is regulated, and the words get used interchangeably. Six checks that tell a clinical intervention from a good afternoon.