Abstract

Musical improvisation is an increasingly recognised rehabilitative therapy for people who have experienced traumatic brain injury initially thought to be `unreachable' or `non-responsive'.

Music Therapy and Traumatic Brain Injury demonstrates how music therapy can be used to attend to the holistic, rather than purely functional, needs of people affected by severe head trauma. Divided into three parts, the first section provides an introduction to the effects brain injury has on a person's livelihood. The second is a comprehensive review of available literature on the use of music therapy in the neurorehabilitative setting. The final section examines three case studies designed according to `therapeutic narrative analysis', an adaptive research method that uses interviewing and video, which focuses on the unique relationship between the professional and the patient.

This book will give clinicians key notes for practice and a vision of the integral role music therapy can have in the successful rehabilitation from brain injury.

Simon Gilbertson is a trained musician and music therapist. He is a lecturer in music therapy at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick, Ireland, and was previously Head of Music Therapy at the Klinik Holthausen in Germany. After gaining his doctorate at David Aldridge's Chair for Qualitative Research in Medicine at the University Witten Herdecke he went to work with David at the Nordoff-Robbins Centre in Witten, Germany. David Aldridge is Co-Director of the Nordoff Robbins Centre and Visiting Professor for the Creative Arts Therapies, Bradford Dementia Group, University of Bradford, UK. He is the author of a number of books within the field of music therapy, such as Music Therapy in Palliative Care and Music Therapy Research and Practice in Medicine, and co-author of Melody in Music Therapy with Gudrun Aldridge, all of which are also published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers.