A ministry report concludes that this technique is not a “consistent therapeutic alternative” in mental health patients
Hospitals throughout Spain have introduced music therapy for years to care for their patients and dozens of professionals use this treatment to improve the health of patients with Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s, and above all, mental health. Music as a healing element spreads throughout the healthcare world, but a report from the Ministry of Health has now come to reduce the euphoria about this technique. “It is not possible to consider music therapy as a consistent therapeutic alternative” to reduce anxiety, stress and depression, concludes the study, prepared by the Aragonese Institute of Health Sciences at the request of Carolina Darias’ department.
In February 2021, the Ministry of Health launched an ambitious plan to protect people’s health against pseudotherapies. Baptized as #CoNprueba, this initiative aims to establish solid evidence on techniques and procedures that are spreading in society, especially in recent years, without a medical basis to support them. In a first stage, Health analyzed static magnetotherapy, the macrobiotic diet, Thai massage and active spiritual healing, and considered all of them pseudotherapies, “since they have not been shown to be supported by scientific knowledge or scientific evidence to support their efficacy and security”.
That is why the ministry did not recommend “its use for sanitary purposes”, although it did not strictly prevent the techniques either. The only thing he could do was put these technical documents on the table so that the health administrations (depending on the autonomous communities) prohibited or limited the advertising of the supposed treatments.
Carolina Darias’ department has already classified the macrobiotic diet or Thai massage as pseudotherapies
At that time, the Ministry of Health announced that it was going to analyze other techniques, such as acupuncture for chronic non-cancer pain of musculoskeletal origin, flower therapy, yoga in selected clinical conditions, foot reflexology, the Pilates method and music therapy to reduce anxiety. , stress and depression. And the results of these investigations have just been published.
“Evidence Based”
According to the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA), this technique is defined as the “clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to achieve individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a licensed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program.” ».
After analyzing 460 articles from different publications around the world on music therapy, Spanish specialists have reached clear conclusions: texts that highlight the benefits of music against stress, anxiety or depression are subject “to a high risk of bias and present inconsistencies”, that is, they are overly optimistic.
Going down to detail, experts have studied ten reports in particular, which do not offer data to support the use of this treatment against mental health problems. «Only three suggest that music therapy could have relevant benefits in the control of anxiety or depression, although confidence in these results is low, due to the risk of bias of the included studies, the heterogeneity and the omission of critical elements in the analysis. review methodology.
The Valencian Parliament has asked the regional government to incorporate this treatment into the health system
In this way, specialists from the Ministry of Health are of the opinion that the articles that praise music therapy for anxiety or depression “have numerous limitations, risk of bias (and) insufficient sample sizes are used.” Therefore, “it is not possible to formulate recommendations in favor of the use of music therapy to reduce anxiety, depression or stress,” they insist.
However, music therapy is booming. On October 25, in the Valencian Community Courts, a non-legal proposal was approved, promoted by the Socialist Party, but which had the affirmative vote of all the political groups, to ask the Valencian Government to incorporate music into the health of autonomy.
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