MHA, a charity providing care, accommodation and support services to older people, has revealed that just one in 1,000 people living with dementia in the UK today are receiving life enhancing music therapy.
Music therapy is a clinically proven treatment, helping both those living with the condition and the people around them to manage symptoms.
Figures show that there are 850,000 people diagnosed with dementia in the UK today. Through using music therapy, therapists can regulate residents’ emotions to alleviate symptoms and identify possible causes. Music therapy is becoming increasingly important as it is able to modify a patient’s behaviour by significantly alleviating agitation and even reduce a patient’s reliance on drugs.
MHA is one of the largest employers of music therapists specialising in dementia in the UK and has been pioneering the treatment since 2008, helping 450 residents a year who are living with dementia. MHA has over 1,900 specialist dementia places in its care homes and wants to provide music therapy for all of them, but its work only scratches the surface of the number of people that could be helped.
To address this gap, MHA has embarked on its largest ever fundraising campaign dedicated to music therapy. It aims to raise funds to pay for more therapists, both in order to treat more people living with dementia, and to treat them over longer periods of time. In addition, MHA will lobby for music therapy to become a prescribed NHS therapy, allowing the treatment to benefit from government funds. This will help to increase its reach across the UK, using the research that MHA is about to embark on.
To showcase just what music therapy can do, the world-renowned piano makers Steinway & Sons joined forces with MHA to host an event at Steinway Hall on Monday 14 November,.
Craig Terry, managing director of Steinway & Sons, explains: “We know the power and impact that music has on people and the difference music therapy can make to people living with dementia. Because of this, we would encourage people to take a look at the important work MHA is doing in this field and see for themselves the real difference music therapy makes to their residents.”
MHA’s chief executive Adrian Bagg adds: “Music Therapy really does make a difference to people who are living with dementia. I have seen for myself the work of our music therapists and spoken to relatives and our staff to know the impact it makes. But we want to make sure all our residents living with dementia can benefit from music therapy, as well as those cared for by other organisations.”
