Instruments for documentation of music therapy sessions: Focus on process vs. effect

It is an important part of the clinical music therapy work to document the daily sessions. For the clinician it is necessary to have a brief overview of each session in order to assess the methods and the process, and not least to be able to give clear reports of these issues to other health care professionals at staff meetings, conferences, etc. For music therapists with many clients there is not time enough during a working day to provide comprehensive process descriptions in the music therapy log. Therefore instruments that help the clinician in reducing and structuring this information are needed.

Danish and Norwegian music therapist have collaborated on developing a one page sheet with a structured form where they after each music therapy session document their use of methods and techniques in individual music therapy with persons with dementia. With this instrument therapists have easy access to the most basic information about what happened in each session, and graphs provide an overview of the music therapy course over time.

In the presentation I will give examples of this instrument and show how the documentation of the process is included in a larger research study with focus on measuring the effect of music therapy in an RCT (Ridder & Stige 2010). My purpose of presenting the instrument, and show case examples where it has been used, is to inspire clinicians and researchers to develop similar instruments; meaningful not only to clinical practice, but also for documentation and large scale research.

References:
Ridder, H.M. & Stige, B. (2011). A joint research protocol for music therapy in dementia care. Conference Issue; World Congress in Music Therapy, Seoul 2011. Music Therapy Today, 9(1), 90-91.