Crossing the River Styx: the power of music, spirituality and religion at the end of life
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47513/mmd.v11i4.700Abstract
Dying from a terminal illness involves a period of transition throughout which the person deals with multiple losses, including the loss of one’s own life. The awareness of death makes the individual confront spiritual questions that touch the very nature of existence, and music can help intensify that spiritual experience bringing new meaning to the end of life. The reasons why spirituality, religion and music can facilitate the existential quest for meaning and provide an overall improvement of the quality of life at the end of life will be explored, aiming to suggest that a humanist approach to end-of-life care in which alleviation of suffering and consideration of the specific needsof the patient including spiritual care and therapy with music would be desirable to help patients during the dying process.References
Worden W. Grief Counselling and Grief Therapy: A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner. 4th ed. London and New York: Routledge; 2009.
Periyakoil VS, Hallenbeck J. Identifying and managing preparatory grief and depression at the end of life. American family physician. 2002;65(5):883-90. Epub 2002/03/20. PubMed PMID: 11898960.
Attig T. Coping with mortality: An essay on self-mourning. Death Studies. 1989;13(4):361-70. doi: 10.1080/07481188908252314.
Tanyi RA. Towards clarification of the meaning of spirituality. Journal of advanced nursing. 2002;39(5):500-9. Epub 2002/08/15. PubMed PMID: 12175360.
Puchalski C, Ferrell B, Virani R, Otis-Green S, Baird P, Bull J, et al. Improving the quality of spiritual care as a dimension of palliative care: the report of the Consensus Conference. Journal of palliative medicine. 2009;12(10):885-904. Epub 2009/10/08. doi: 10.1089/jpm.2009.0142. PubMed PMID: 19807235.
Hill PC, Pargament K, II, Hood RW, McCullough JME, Swyers JP, Larson DB, et al. Conceptualizing Religion and Spirituality: Points of Commonality, Points of Departure. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour. 2000;30(1):51-77. doi: 10.1111/1468-5914.00119.
Tomer A, Eliason GT. Existentialism and Death Attitudes. In: Tomer A, Eliason GT, Wong PTP, eds. Existential and Spiritual Issues in Death Attitudes. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; 2008:10.
Pargament KI. Religion and Coping: The Current State of Knowledge. In: Folkman S. The Oxford Handbook of Stress, Health and Coping. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2010.
Spilka B, Hood RW, Hunsberger B, Gorsuch R. The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach. New York and London: The Guilford Press; 2003.
Delgado-Guay MO, Hui D, Parsons HA, Govan K, De la Cruz M, Thorney S, et al. Spirituality, religiosity, and spiritual pain in advanced cancer patients. Journal of pain and symptom management. 2011;41(6):986-94. Epub 2011/03/16. doi: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2010.09.017. PubMed PMID: 21402459.
Puchalski CM, Ferrell B. Making Health Care Whole: Integrating Spirituality into Patient Care. West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Press, 2010.
Gadamer HG. Truth and Method. 2nd revised ed. New York: Crossroad Publishing; 2004.
Gabrielsson A. Strong Experiences with Music: Music is much more than just music [Internet]. Oxford Scholarship Online; 2011 [cited 2019 May 24]. Available from: https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199695225.001.0001/acprof-9780199695225-chapter-012.
Savage RWH. Being, Transcendence and the Ontology of Music. The World of Music. 2009;51(2):7-22.
Gadamer HG. The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1986.
Puchalski CM. A Time for Listening and Caring: Spirituality and Care of the Chronically Ill and Dying. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2006.
Cassell EJ. The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press; 2004.
Ross B. The Causal-manipulative Approach to Musical Meaning. International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music. 2017;48(1):3-17.
Kramer L. Expression and Truth. Berkeley: University of California Press; 2012.
Christensen J. Sound and the Aesthetics of Play. Palgrave Studies in Sound. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66899-4_2; 2018.
Krumhansl CL, Zupnick JA. Cascading reminiscence bumps in popular music. Psychological science. 2013;24(10):2057-68. Epub 2013/09/06. doi: 10.1177/0956797613486486. PubMed PMID: 24006129.
Janata P, Tomic ST, Rakowski SK. Characterization of music-evoked autobiographical memories. Memory (Hove, England). 2007;15(8):845-60. Epub 2007/10/30. doi: 10.1080/09658210701734593. PubMed PMID: 17965981.
Cobb MR. Spiritual Care. In: Lloyd-Williams M. Psychosocial Issues in Palliative Care. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2008.
Potvin N, Argue J. Theoretical Considerations of Spirit and Spirituality in Music Therapy. Music Therapy Perspectives. 2014;32(2):118-28. doi: 10.1093/mtp/miu022.
Suzel AR, Dueck J, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Music and World Christianites. https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199859993.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199859993; 2016.
Droit-Volet S, Ramos D, Bueno JLO, Bigand E. Music, emotion, and time perception: the influence of subjective emotional valence and arousal? Front Psychol. 2013;4:417-. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00417. PubMed PMID: 23882233.
Bisson N, Tobin S, Grondin S. Remembering the Duration of Joyful and Sad Musical Excerpts: Assessment with Three Estimation Methods. NeuroQuantology; Vol 7, No 1 (2009): Open Access: Time, Timing, and the Brain. 2008.
Kania A. The Philosophy of Music (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) [Internet]. Plato.stanford.edu. 2017 [cited 2019 May 20]. Available from: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/music/#MusiOnto.
Byock I. The Meaning and Value of Death. Journal of palliative medicine. 2002;5(2):279-88. doi: 10.1089/109662102753641278.
Tarr B, Launay J, Dunbar RIM. Music and social bonding: "self-other" merging and neurohormonal mechanisms. Front Psychol. 2014;5:1096-. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01096. PubMed PMID: 25324805.
Cross I. Music as an Emergent Exaptation. In: Bannan N, ed. Music, Language, and Human Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2012.
Daaleman TP, VandeCreek L. Placing religion and spirituality in end-of-life care. JAMA. 2000;284(19):2514-7. Epub 2000/11/14. PubMed PMID: 11074785.
Moss H. Music therapy, spirituality and transcendence. Nordic Journal of Music Therapy. 2019;28(3):212-23. doi: 10.1080/08098131.2018.1533573.
Stillwater-Korns M, Malkin G. The role of Music at the End of Life. In: Puchalski CM. A Time for Listening and Caring: Spirituality and Care of the Chronically Ill and Dying. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2006.
Frankl VE. The Feeling of Meaninglessness: A Challenge to Psychotherapy and Philosophy. Wisconsin: Marquette University Press; 2010.
Cobb MR, Puchalski CM, Rumbold B. Oxford Textbook of Spirituality in Healthcare. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2012.
Maugans TA. The SPIRITual history. Archives of family medicine. 1996;5(1):11-6. Epub 1996/01/01. PubMed PMID: 8542049.
Puchalski CM. Spirituality and end-of-life care: a time for listening and caring. Journal of palliative medicine. 2002;5(2):289-94. Epub 2002/05/15. doi: 10.1089/109662102753641287. PubMed PMID: 12006231.
McClement SE, Chochinov HM. Spiritual Issues in Palliative Medicine. In: Geoffrey HWC, Cherny NI, Christakis NA, Fallon M, Kaasa S, Portenoy RK. Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2011.
Kellehear A. Spirituality and palliative care: a model of needs. Palliative medicine. 2000;14(2):149-55. Epub 2000/06/01. doi: 10.1191/026921600674786394. PubMed PMID: 10829149.
Music therapy and mental health [Internet]. American Music Therapy Association; 2006 [cited 2019 May 22]. Available from: http://www.musictherapy.org/assets/1/7/MT_Mental_Health_2006.pdf.
Hilliard RE. Music Therapy in Hospice and Palliative Care: a Review of the Empirical Data. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2005;2(2):173-8. Epub 2005/04/07. doi: 10.1093/ecam/neh076. PubMed PMID: 15937557.
Krout RE. Music therapy with imminently dying hospice patients and their families: facilitating release near the time of death. The American journal of hospice & palliative care. 2003;20(2):129-34. Epub 2003/04/16. doi: 10.1177/104990910302000211. PubMed PMID: 12693645.
Bunt L, Hoskyns S. The Handbook of Music Therapy. New York: Brunner-Routledge; 2002.
Clements-Cortes A. The use of music in facilitating emotional expression in the terminally ill. The American journal of hospice & palliative care. 2004;21(4):255-60. Epub 2004/08/19. doi: 10.1177/104990910402100406. PubMed PMID: 15315187.
Salmon D. Music and emotion in palliative care. Journal of palliative care. 1993;9(4):48-52. Epub 1993/01/01. PubMed PMID: 7510804.
Bradt J, Dileo C, Magill L, Teague A. Music interventions for improving psychological and physical outcomes in cancer patients. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2016(8):Cd006911. Epub 2016/08/16. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD006911.pub3. PubMed PMID: 27524661.
Gutgsell KJ, Schluchter M, Margevicius S, DeGolia PA, McLaughlin B, Harris M, et al. Music therapy reduces pain in palliative care patients: a randomized controlled trial. Journal of pain and symptom management. 2013;45(5):822-31. Epub 2012/09/29. doi: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2012.05.008. PubMed PMID: 23017609.
Bradt J, Dileo C. Music interventions for mechanically ventilated patients. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2014(12):Cd006902. Epub 2014/12/10. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD006902.pub3. PubMed PMID: 25490233.
Black BP, Penrose-Thompson P. Music as a Therapeutic Resource in End-of-Life Care. Journal of Hospice & Palliative Nursing. 2012;14(2):118-25. doi: 10.1097/NJH.0b013e31824765a2.
Schroeder-Sheker T. Prescriptive music: sounding our transitions. Explore (New York, NY). 2005;1(1):57-8. Epub 2006/06/20. doi: 10.1016/j.explore.2004.10.009. PubMed PMID: 16781501.
The Medical Musician Initiative [Internet]. Medical Musician Initiative. 2019 [cited 2019 May 23]. Available from: https://medicalmusicianinitiative.org/about-mmi.
Schulman A. From Code Blue to Medical Musician [Internet]. 21CM. 2017 [cited 2019 May 23]. Available from: http://21cm.org/magazine/special-features/2017/11/02/from-code-blue-to-medical-musician/.
Gawande A. Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine, and What Matters in the End. London: Profile Books Ltd.; 2014.
