Music Therapy for People with Cerebral Palsy: A systematic Review

Puchong Chimpiboon

puchongmsmu@gmail.com

Abstract

This study aimed to synthesize research studies in music therapy for people with cerebral palsy. Nineteen quantitative research studies met the selection criteria which were collected from electronic databases including PubMed, CHINAHL, ERIC, ThaiLIS, and ProQuest. A coding form, consisting of a) publications and researchers, b) research methodology, and c) research content and music intervention, was developed as a research instrument for collecting the characteristics data from these research studies. Descriptive statistics (frequency and percentages) were used to analyse the data and describe the research findings.

Result of synthesis showed that articles (84.2%) was the largest number of research studies, and were published via journals in the field of medicine (57.9%) during 2011 - 2015 (52.6%). Single-case study, one group pretest-posttest, and randomized control group pretest-posttest were equally used as research design at 21.1%. Participants in the research studies were mainly diagnosed as Spasticity (26.3%) in adolescence to early adulthood (21.1%). In terms of research contents and music intervention, Neurological Music Therapy (NMT) was the most widely used theory for developing the music intervention (42.1%). Music movement was the most popularly used (52.6%). Songs were most commonly selected by researcher based on assessment (42.1%). Audio equipment was mostly used as the music instruments or materials (25%). In respect of the number of sessions and the duration of time, the music intervention was given to participants only one time (26.3%) for 30 minutes mostly (36.8%). The outcomes were largely in the area of physical development (63.2%) such as gait, fine motor, gross motor, and step cadence. Regarding the testing results, most of the research findings were based on the hypothesis (26.3%).

Keywords: Music Therapy, Cerebral Palsy, Systematic Review