NURS 360: Is Music Therapy more Effective for Treating Depression in Patients than Medication?

Music therapy has been studied considerably in the last decade and analysts have successfully discovered that it can be a useful treatment for patients with depression. Specifically, researchers have found that this therapy has overall increased patient outcomes for both the elderly and end- of-life care patients. Depression medications are beneficial, but bring along many side effects. Music therapy has been found to increase patients’ sense of well-being, bring about excitement and motivation, and nevertheless provide greater socialization opportunities. Integrating music therapy into regular hospital treatment, nursing home, and hospice settings can overall increase patient outcomes and improve the negative emotions that can ultimately develop from their perpetual exclusion from society. Nurses, medical professionals, and hospital staff members that possess a musical background, can incorporate their familiarity with music into their interactions among patients. The hospitals and nursing home systems can also provide staffed musicians to come and perform at the patient's bedside upon request. The research was completed in a PICO format stating the patients as the population, music therapy as the intervention, medication as the comparison, and decreased depression as the outcome.