Music Therapy Program
Since its establishment in 2003, Hennepin Healthcare’s Inspire Arts program has been a regional leader in connecting patients to the therapeutic power of music. Its team of music therapists offers our community moments of comfort and escape—helping humanize the healthcare experience and add warmth to a clinical environment.
Music therapy can be as simple as an uplifting song in a waiting room. However, professional music therapists like those at Hennepin Healthcare are trained to offer various musical interventions tailored to individual patients' tastes and wellness goals. Through melody, rhythm, and lyrics, Inspire Arts therapists offer pathways to wellness with proven, visible results.
Inspire Arts music therapist Karin Vaccaro can often be found carrying her guitar and cartful of instruments to patients in our Comprehensive Cancer Center, supporting them during infusion and radiation therapy appointments. Research shows that, for such patients, music can increase muscle relaxation, decrease anxiety, and strengthen their ability to cope. Many cancer patients at Hennepin see such immediate effects from Karin’s musical interventions that they schedule chemotherapy appointments based on her availability.
Such tangible results from music therapy can be observed throughout the rooms of Hennepin Healthcare. Consider the following interventions you can provide through the gift of music therapy:
- A patient with intellectual disabilities will only sit for treatment when her music therapist comes to play her favorite song.
- A shy pediatric patient will not communicate with her caregivers until a group sing-along breaks down barriers and establishes trust and rapport.
- Our Palliative Care team calls upon a music therapist to visit a patient with a life-threatening illness whose pain can only partly be managed by medications.
As part of Hennepin Healthcare’s mission to break down barriers to care, Inspire Arts opens up channels between patients and caregivers that other methods cannot. Karin explains, “You don’t need to be a musician to benefit from music therapy. As a patient, you have to be open to the process. If you are, music therapy can be a very powerful tool to relieve symptoms that is non-invasive and non-pharmacological.” In 2023, donors helped deliver 1,466 music therapy sessions that touched an estimated 4,600 patients and family members at Hennepin Healthcare. A gift to Inspire Arts will make a lasting impact. We need $60,000 to support our music therapy program for one year. Your generosity ensures Hennepin Healthcare can provide a healing environment for patients during their stay.
