Sound Therapy

“So it’s music therapy that you’re doing?”

Almost every conversation we’ve had about Decoda in the past three years has contained that remark. Anyone not in the business isn’t interested in the fact that to call yourself a music therapist you must be a trained professional. We’re using music, our work is clearly beneficial therefore, in the minds of most people we talk to we’re entitled to call ourselves “music therapists” and call our work “music therapy”.
The reason we never do that is because music therapy is the use of music to achieve therapeutic goals. “Therapy” can imply fixing someone, making them better in some way. We start from where the person is now and value that. We don’t impose any goal other than using whatever we can to engage the person.

At the Music Gym we simply provide the conditions in which people are free to explore, to observe others and to engage when they want to. Against that background we’ve experienced incredible changes in people who come regularly – changes in mobility, alertness, attention, communication and behaviour.

The independent evaluation of the pilot project found

• 97% of questionnaires completed stated that their client had benefited overall from their participation in the Music Gym
• 88% stated that the client had developed over time
• 72% of clients had tried things new to them
• 55% of participants demonstrated sustained learning – remarkable for people with profound and multiple disabilities.

Would you like to know more about the Music Gym or Decoda’s other work.
Simply email us or phone 01424 444322

For more information, please visit www.decoda.org