For more than 35 years, music therapists have been
working in different settings of end-of-life care. The
Canadian music therapist, Susan Munro, was the first
to systematically describe the physical, psychological,
social, and spiritual impact of her work with terminally
ill patients at the world’s first palliative care unit,
founded by Balfour Mount in Montréal [1]. Since then,
music therapy has become a substantial part of multidisciplinary
palliative care in many industrialized countries.
Today, music therapy is one of the most frequently
used complementary therapies in US hospices, and is
widely accepted by other professional groups in the UK
[2,3]. The German classification of procedures (OPS 8-
982 and OPS 8-98e) explicitly recommends the use of
music therapy in inpatient and outpatient palliative care
treatment [4].