Music Therapy

It’s common for kids to get scared or anxious when they’re in the hospital. The power of music can promote healing and bring comfort to your child. As an established healthcare specialty, music therapy addresses the physical, emotional, cognitive, social and spiritual needs of your child and family.

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Benefits for children

• Reduces stress and anxiety – Our music therapists work hard to make your child’s environment as normal as possible by masking hospital noises to help ease their fears and worries.
• Relieves pain and increases relaxation – Sometimes your child may have to undergo a scary or painful procedure or experience. To children relax we use their favorite music, guided imagery and other relaxation techniques.
• Promotes coping – Music-based coping strategies are used to help your child and family understand any diagnoses or procedures.
• Improves communication – When words may be difficult for your child, our music therapists help children to express themselves through instrument playing, singing, songwriting, lyric analysis and more.

Benefits for babies and parents

• Supports the sensory development of premature babies – Research shows that music therapy can help with infant weight gain and may decrease the length of a hospital stay. We’ll teach you how to do multiple stimulation activities with music including singing, rocking and infant massage techniques.
• Improves the cognitive, motor and language skills – Music therapy helps improve your baby’s fine motor skills and stimulates language and brain development. Our music therapist will teach you techniques to continue your baby's development after his or her hospital stay.
• Provides you with the opportunity for interaction and bonding – Music can be an effective tool to help you bond, create memories and interact with your baby. Many times, our music therapists will create personalized recordings, like custom lullabies, heartbeat recordings and voice recordings.

Legacy projects and end-of-life care

We understand how hard a chronic diagnosis can be on your child and family. Our music therapists can provide live bedside music to promote positive memory recall and reminiscence. Life review is often used in end-of-life care and helps patients and families express themselves, find meaning and legacy. It can provide conflict resolution and peace and comfort for patients and loved ones as well as emotional support. A music therapist may also use recording technology to forever capture your child’s heartbeat in a song.

Our team of certified music therapists

Your child and family can trust that the music therapy program at Bronson Children’s Hospital is led by a board-certified music therapist. Our team follows the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) standards, practices, policies and procedures.

If you would like to know more about music therapy, contact Suzanna Peczeniuk-Hoffman, MM, MT-BC, at (269) 341-7341 or email her at peczenis@bronsonhg.org.