The Child Life Program also offers music therapy to children at bedside or in the playroom. No musical skills are required to participate in a music therapy session. The Certified Music Therapist is trained to design the sessions to meet your child's needs. Activites such as listening to, playing, or singing familiar songs, as well as creating improvised music can be a bart of a music therapy session. Music Therapy is an established healthcare profession that uses music to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of individuals of all ages. Music therapy improves the quality of life and meets the needs of children in the PICU. Interventions are designed to:
Music Therapy can be used to alleviate pain in conjunction with anesthesia or pain medication. It can elevate patients' mood and counteract depression as well as having a calming effect often used to induce sleep. Relaxation techniques counteract apprehension or fear and lesson muscle tension for the purpose of relaxation; including the auronomic nervous system.
The Child Life Specialists are trained to teach your children about different procedures and treatments though the use fo pretend play with special dolls and medical equipment. Children learn and master through play and those who practice procedures with dolls become more comfortable with their own experiences in the hospital.
It is comforting to a child to have someone accompany him or her to procedures or tests. A Child Life Specialist can be available upon request to accompany you and your child to a procedure. We use a variety of techniques including relaxation and distraction, which help to reduce the anziety your child may fell waiting for and during procedures.
Humor therapy is a catchall term for the various ways in which health-care organizations are currently using the art of laughter to treat disease. Today hospitals and ambulatory clinics not only embrace guffawing doctors, but other methods of humor therapy as well, from in-hospital clowns to more formal humor programs. While every hospital situration is different, you may find "Comedy Carts" (featuring props that poke fun at standard medical devices) or "Caring Clowns" who are professionally trained to work with patients of all ages. For a hospitalized child, a session of humor therapy might begin with an enormous clown shoe appearing around the door of the hospital room. Or a doctor may suddenly blow bubbles out of his stethoscope.