Music therapy intervention aims to reduce stress among children with cancer, parents
Sheri L. Robb, PhD, credits a middle school assignment with leading her to her life’s work.
“Probably my very first exposure to music therapy was for a seventh-grade book report,” Robb, a music therapy researcher, Walther professor of supportive oncology at Indiana University School of Nursing, and research scientist at Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center, told Healio. “I found a book on music therapy in the library at my school, and it just stuck in my head. I really liked the idea of music as a way to help people. I started out in college as a music performance major, but then switched my major to music therapy. It seemed like the right fit for me.”
Apparently, it was.
Robb later embarked on a research career focused on supportive care needs of children and adolescents with cancer, specifically through music therapy. She has held 15 years of continuous NIH funding for her efforts.
In her capacity as a Walther professor, Robb is leading a study to learn how music and play interventions can alleviate stress, improve survivorship and potentially augment immune function during cancer treatments in children aged 3 to 8 years while also benefiting their parents.
The Walther professor is one of five endowed positions aimed at developing a supportive oncology program that involves research and patient care.
Robb spoke to Healio about the benefits of music therapy and how she hopes to advance this area of supportive oncology at the IU Schools of Nursing and Medicine.
Healio: How will you advance the science of music therapy as a Walther professor of supportive oncology?
Robb: About 75% of parents and 50% of children experience very high levels of distress during a child’s cancer treatment. Our current program of research centers on understanding how music interventions work to alleviate both stress and trauma associated with childhood cancer treatment. The Walther chair is providing some additional resources to expand and accelerate the work we’re doing for children, but we have investigators working with adults with cancer, as well.
Music is a very nonthreatening activity that is familiar to children and parents. We’re harnessing that resource in a way that helps them discover how to use music in intentional ways to reduce their stress. It’s something that is very appealing to children, parents and adolescents.
Healio: What are the overall benefits of music therapy for patients with cancer?
Robb: We are building scientific evidence to help us understand how and under what circumstances music therapy is most beneficial. We are still working to increase the number of rigorous trials to help us gather evidence. For patients being treated for breast cancer, Society of Integrative Oncology Clinical Practice Guidelines recommend music therapy for stress reduction, anxiety, depression, fatigue and quality of life. However, more research is needed to inform the use of music for pain management.
We had an earlier NIH trial that demonstrated how songwriting and video production benefited adolescents and young adults going through a high-risk cancer treatment in terms of being able to talk about their cancer experience. Working collaboratively with the music therapist, adolescents had access to a supportive, meaningful and creative way to explore and cope with their cancer experience as they moved through it.
Healio: Do they write songs as part of this intervention?
Robb: Sometimes they create original music, and sometimes they write lyrics to an existing melody. In this particular trial, they were writing lyrics to an already familiar tune. Creating these lyrics gave them a way to talk about what’s important to them and express themselves.
Healio: What will your study of a music therapy intervention for children entail?
Robb: We’re looking at how experiences like music and play can lower the interrelated stress young children and parents experience during cancer treatment. The children are enrolled in the trial with one parent.
In particular, we know that for young children, the distress they and their parents experience is highly interrelated. Parents play an important role in helping young children regulate their stress experience. The music therapist is working with the parent and the child together in a music play or a storybook experience. We’re looking at how this shared experience can be used to reduce stress and improve mood and quality of life.
For parents in particular we are looking at traumatic stress symptoms. There is evidence suggesting that early cancer treatment can be related to the development of traumatic stress symptoms for some parents after treatment ends. One of our earlier trials showed these shared music experiences can buffer those symptoms for some of our parents. In this study, we’ve added a biomarker of stress, so we’re taking saliva from both the child and the parent as a way to look at their cortisol levels. We want to see how music or a play experience like storybooks might affect their stress at a biological level.
Healio: What is the Sound Health Network, and how does it relate to the work you are doing?
Robb: The Sound Health Network is an NEA-funded program at University of California, San Francisco, co-directed by Julene Johnson, PhD, and Charles J. Limb, MD. The mission is to promote research and public awareness about the impact of music on health and wellness. The vision is to create a network of multidisciplinary stakeholders — scientists, music therapists, musicians, clinicians, organizations and members of the general public — from the grassroots level up to accelerate research and raise public awareness of the evidence we have right now. This would support growth of interdisciplinary partnerships and provide information so that people can make informed decisions, but it’s also about advocacy for the importance of music to promote health and well-being.
Healio: Is there anything else you’d like to mention on this topic?
Robb: There are several board-certified music therapists who work for Riley Hospital for Children and IU Health Simon Cancer Center. Their work as clinicians is important to advancing the science of music therapy and they touch the lives of many families living with cancer. A lot of them work in collaboration with me and with other music therapy faculty at Indiana University and Purdue University (IUPUI) to do research in this space. We also have a music therapy degree program at IUPUI chaired by Debra S. Burns, PhD, who does research in adult cancer. They recently enrolled their first cohort of doctoral students. So, we can expect to see a lot of wonderful developments and advancements as a result of that program, as well.
References:
- Healio Interview
- Holochwost SJ, et al. Front Psychol. 2020;doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.587871.
- New Walther professor in supportive oncology to focus on music therapy for cancer patients (press release). Available at: medicine.iu.edu/news/2022/12/walther-chair-in-supportive-oncology. Published Dec. 5, 2022. Accessed March 7, 2023.
For more information:
Sheri L. Robb, PhD, can be reached at: Indiana University School of Nursing, 600 Barnhill Drive, NU E433, Indianapolis, IN 46202; email: shrobb@iu.edu. For more on the music therapy program, visit https://et.iupui.edu/departments/mat/programs/mth/.
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