Designing Musically Assisted Rehabilitation Systems

Abstract

This article reviews the process of designing technology to meet specific needs during rehabilitation-oriented music therapy. Individuals with acquired brain injury have unique needs, many of them involving physical rehabilitation. These needs are evaluated throughout the music therapy processes described and provide the foundational guidelines for new instrument designs. The article suggests that instruments designed with rehabilitation goals in mind may differ from traditional music instruments. Music technologies (musical instrument digital interface [MIDI] instruments and software) developed by the author to facilitate particular interventions during music therapy rehabilitation will be described. An embedded ‘‘Midi-Fly’’ technology that captures quantitative data related to these interventions will be explicated.