Caregiving, a global public health concern that impacts more than 1 billion individuals worldwide, is associated with negative physical and psychosocial health effects due to the demanding nature of the role. This presentation describes a novel pilot intervention program, “Listen, Breathe, Move” (LBM), which integrates music therapy and gentle movement/yoga. The single, virtually delivered session was piloted to investigate the feasibility and acceptability of the program among caregivers. This session will focus on describing the needs of caregivers, the development of the LBM program, the components and implementation of the program, and findings. Perspectives from the undergraduate music therapy research assistant will also be discussed briefly, with a focus on the student’s experience with an interdisciplinary undergraduate research experience.
Over 1 billion individuals worldwide are reported to provide care for an person living with chronic health or care-related needs, with the number continuing to rise the number of individuals entering older adulthood rises. Unpaid caregiving, also known as informal or family caregiving (ICG) is pivotal in the long-term care infrastructure in many countries and allows individuals to continue to age in place in their own communities. This presentation describes the pilot project, “Listen, Breathe, Move” (LBM), an interdisciplinary single telehealth workshop which included music therapy and gentle movement/yoga, with a focus on impacting the health and wellbeing of ICGs of adults over 18 years old. Research indicates the multifaceted needs associated with caregiving due to the complex demands, which often impacts overall physical and psychological health of the ICG. Positive impacts of caregiving are also prevalent, and research supports that increasing positive associations of caregiving may aide in decreasing or mitigating the negative effects associated with the role. The LBM intervention (N=14), which was delivered in a single session online, combined several music therapy techniques, specifically music-guided breathing, and a music-assisted mindfulness relaxation (MAMR), and gentle movement/yoga. The LBM intervention was found to be highly feasible and acceptable by ICGs and positive effects on wellbeing, caregiving satisfaction, and feelings associated with physical activity were also found. Themes from free form comments also supported the acceptability of the intervention along with considerations that will impact the future plans for expansion of the intervention. Through student-focused internal funding awarded by the university where the research was conducted, undergraduate research assistants (URAs) who were both Music Therapy and Kinesiology majors, were central to this pilot project and the implementation of the intervention during data collection. This session will also include the URA perspective. Lessons learned from the experience and how those findings impact the future expansion of the overall LBM intervention will also be discussed.
The session will include an overview of the physiological and psychosocial needs of ICGs, an overview of the research supporting the use of music therapy and yoga-based interventions for ICGs, development of the research-informed LBM intervention, the data collection process, results of the pilot project, and URA perspective of the experience. Brief examples from the LBM intervention will also be shared.
