PATTERNS—A Model for Evaluating Trauma in NICU Music Therapy: Part 2—Treatment Parameters

摘要

While preterm infants are born with survival mechan- isms intact, they lack the protective buffering system of the intrauterine environment. Dysmature neurologi- cal functioning and the absence of coping strategies further impede the preterm infant’s capacity to manage the heightened states of arousal commonly linked to an NICU hospitalization. Music therapy offers a unique capacity to enhance healing across the spectrum of experience, and research in NICU music therapy has shown consistent benefit for infants, parents, and care- givers within this environment. Integrating current evidence across disciplines in developing new models of treatment is key to building fully informed and responsible practices. PATTERNS (Preventive Approach to Traumatic Experience by Resourcing the Nervous System) was developed to address this need by both identifying the broad-ranging potential for traumatic experience in a hospital environment and utilizing this scope of potential exposure to trauma as a construct for the formation of a preventive music therapy treatment model that is based on latent human resiliency and trauma renegotiation principles.