Use of Technologies in Music Therapy Clinical Practice

Abstract Music therapy, an innovative treatment, is a proven complementary therapy that incorporates the nature and potential of music to promote individuals’ health and recovery from disease at emotional, superfluous, cognitive, and physiological levels. The objective of this literature review is to examine the adoption of technologies in music therapy starting with easy use and moving to improved benefits. A narrative review method was used in this study recognizing a broad range of scholarly articles, product literature and research papers adopting systematic method while stressing on the applicability of the technological solutions in clinical care settings. The review shows that it is possible to use musical instrument digital interface devices, speech-based emotion recognition, room acoustic measurement software, as well as applications for interactive music composing to increase the effectiveness of music therapy. For example, interactive audio visual (AV) systems and music identification (MID) will enable the clinicians to create patient’s profile; on the other hand, adaptive musical instruments and motion sensing interface will allow patients with physical impairment to play an active role in musical performance. The conclusions underline the possibilities of using applications for training metronome for gait, a speech-emotion recognition tool for monitoring patients’ states, and video analysis for assessing session effectiveness. However, these developments clearly depict some impediments which hinder the entrance of these technologies in areas such as India due to ignorance, high costs, and op tilting towards resistance. In conclusion, one can state that although the new technologies are the valuable potential in changing the stream of music therapy where effective and efficient therapeutic approaches are in high demand, further intensity of efforts and actions to spread awareness, make therapies affordable and integrate into the clinical and educational practice is needed. The consequent of this review is to provide for further programs in research toward formation of more cultured and easily reachable technicalities of the musical therapy so as to improve the medical benefits of music therapy.