The idea of integrating the arts, particularly music, into health care continues to gain momentum as research has demonstrated its benefits. “This is a great time for health professionals to embrace the potential of evidence-based music therapy to help patients with a wide variety of disorders,” says Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, former director of the National Institutes of Health. “Ideally, every health professional would build relationships with local music therapists and then consult about the kinds of referrals that might have the most benefit.
“Music therapy involves no pills and no side effects,” he notes. “It should be part of the therapeutic inventory that all providers can tap into.”
Dr. Collins and others in the field would like to see a push for health insurance coverage of arts-related activities. “Physicians can advocate at the local, state, and national levels through the American Academy of Neurology and other organizations to promote insurance companies’ coverage of arts therapies as effective ways to enhance well-being and living better with neurologic disease,” explains Daniel C. Potts, MD, FAAN, a neurologist at the Tuscaloosa VA Medical Center in Alabama.
“The big goal is to prescribe arts-based therapies,” says Alexander Pantelyat, MD, FAAN, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Music and Medicine in Baltimore. “As a neurologist, for example, I would be able to write a prescription for a patient with, say, mild cognitive impairment to visit an art gallery, attend a concert, or join a community-based choir or dance class for the patient's cognitive well-being and have it be covered by health insurance.”
There are local and national resources on music therapy available to patients and doctors. “Health care professionals can identify arts therapists in their communities through national organizations such as the American Art Therapy Association and the American Music Therapy Association and then reach out to those therapists to consult with or prescribe treatments for particular patients or invite therapists to participate in community educational events,” says Dr. Potts.
Read More
