Thanatological music: music for the end of life

A music-thanatologist.., uses music to bring comfort to the dying.

"Doctors can write lots of medical prescriptions and not get the right response,” said Dr. Stewart Mones, medical director at Sacred Heart (hospital). “There are times when no medicines are as effective as music therapy."

Music-thanatology — from Thantos, the Greek word for death — has been around in various forms for centuries. Its roots extend at least back to the monastic medicine of Benedictine monks in 11th-century Cluny, France.

As practiced today, it was developed over more than 30 years by Therese Schroeder-Sheker. Her Chalice of Repose program was located in Colorado and Montana before 2002, when it moved to Mt. Angel in the quiet farm country of the Willamette Valley south of Portland... It stresses carefully individualized “prescriptive music,” a concept Schroeder-Sheker developed in which a harpist observes the body processes and mental state of a patient and adjusts tone and tempo to match.

Music thanatologists say they use the harp for the many sounds it can make and for its warm, low, resonant tones. And it’s portable. Their vigils...are held at no cost to the patient at a growing number of hospitals and hospices across the United States and elsewhere.
(personal note: as a former harpist, I think this is an excellent program. I have met some harpists who play in nursing homes, but not at hospices).