Music has long been associated with health and healing in many cultures. Apollo, the Greek god of music, was also the god of healing. Today’s efforts in many settings that attend to seriously ill patients reflect this belief. We have a major music therapy effort in the Integrative Medicine program at Sloan Kettering, involving two senior music therapists plus graduate student interns who work primarily with inpatients.

Music therapy is like psychotherapy. It applies music instead of words to reach similar goals. In some situations, for example when patients are facing end of life, become non-communicative or withdrawn, music may be the only way to reach them. We receive many requests from the hospital for music therapy, because there are many seriously ill patients who respond to little else. It is quite magical to see what music can do.

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