Dr al-Yazeedi is seen speaking during the training yesterday while al-Heeti and Aeberhart look on
By Noimot Olayiwola/Staff Reporter

The Hamad Medical Corporation’s Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R) and the Qatar Music Academy are jointly planning to establish a programme that will incorporate and promote music as a rehabilitation therapy for those patients suffering from cognitive, physical and psychological problems, it is learnt.
The HMC, which has some three-quarters of rehabilitation patients suffering from cognitive problems and can be assisted with music therapy, will recruit specialist music therapists, who will apply the new technique to all patients in need of rehab.
There are also plans to create awareness about music therapy in the community in special centres such as the Shafallah Medical Centre for Children with Disabilities, Al Noor Institute for the Blind and other such centres.
To achieve the aim of establishing music as a therapy in the treatment of rehabilitation patients as well as introduce the technique to practitioners, the PM&R department,  in co-operation with QMA, is organising a five-day special training for some 20 rehabilitation and allied health service professionals and therapists from the department, Shafallah Centre, Al Noor and the Qatar Assistive Technology Centre (Mada).
Participants are being given the opportunity to learn more about music therapy as an established form of expressive therapies in the promotion of good health.
“This is the first time we are holding a training of this nature in Qatar, although music therapy is well known as a skill for rehabilitation elsewhere in the world. And, we will be using the technique for three different groups in our department, which comprise children having congenital problems involving their cognitive level, adults who have suffered trauma as well as those people who have sustained a form of disability or the other,” PM&R department acting chairperson Dr Wafa al-Yazeedi told reporters yesterday on the sidelines of the workshop.
According to the official, who called for the establishment of a Musical Therapy School that will combine both medical and musical training, there are five categories of patients presently receiving treatment at the rehab unit.
“We have early intervention rehabilitation where we manage patients in need of communication, we have attended to some 178 patients in the past three months. There is also sub-acute section which has 46 beds space and three-quarter of the patients need daily music therapy,” she explained adding “we have between 80 and 90 patients in our long-term care and consist patients in critical condition, those in comatose or need mental rehab.”
Skilled Nursing facility and community services are other sections at the department, she said.
Speaking about the QMA’s role, its director and principal Abdul Ghafour al-Heeti noted that the power of music therapy was recognised around the world and the QMA’s vision was to offer the immense benefits of the treatment to the population of Qatar.
“Working together with HMC and other partners, we will strive to make this a reality,” he said.
The workshop facilitator from Switzerland-based Child and Paediatric Hospital as well as Neurological Rehabilitation Clinic’s music therapist Barbara Aeberhart explained that music therapy was an allied health profession and one of the expressive therapies, consisting of an interpersonal process in which a trained music therapist uses music and all of its facets: physical, emotional, mental, social, aesthetic and spiritual - in order to help clients improve or maintain their health.
“Music therapists primarily help client improve their health across various domains such as emotional and affective development, improvement of self-esteem, cognitive functioning, social motor skills, by using music experiences and improvisations with musical instruments, voice and body  to achieve treatment goals and objectives,” she explained.
Also, the QMA Arab Music section head Issa Boulos noted that there was the need to ensure that music reflect the culture of the patient in order to achieve the desired therapeutic effects.
“It is important to keep close ties with the community by incorporating music as a therapeutic tool because already people are making use of music as a support system because it has manifested itself in many ways within the community whether to express our emotions (sad or happy) or to communicate,” he pointed out.

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