Background: As a student nurse I chose to write my fourth year dissertation on the use of music as a therapeutic method to reduce anxiety in patients living with dementia. Music has been shown to have a positive effect on patients’ anxiety levels and improve their quality of life. A music therapy intervention could be beneficial but I realised I would need a framework that would enable me to implement the intervention in a ward setting, while offering practitioners and other participants a reasonable level of control and ownership.

Discussion: Practice development was chosen because it is a person-centred framework, encouraging the learning of all those involved as well as those facilitating. It is inclusive and allows staff to adapt to the way new practices are introduced in a project. Change management theory was also considered as a framework but lacked many of the person-centred qualities required.

Conclusions and implications for practice: Practice development provides the required characteristics for a project to introduce music into a care setting. Given that the methods of the project rely heavily on the involvement of staff and patients’ families, it is important to offer them a sense of ownership and control as an encouragement to take an interest and pride in its success. Furthermore, student nurses can benefit from being introduced to practice development because it will offer them a change theory that is person centred and inclusive.

https://doi.org/10.19043/ipdj.61.006

This article by Alasdair Pithie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 License.