Music as Medicine at the End-of-Life with Music Thanatologist with Catharine DeLong
Recorded: June 2021
Members View HERE
Webinar Guest Speakers:
Catherine DeLong – Certified Music-thanatologist, Musician & Chaplain
Webinar Moderator:
Kris Kington-Barker – INELDA Doula
Music at the bedside brings beauty, intimacy, and comfort to end-of-life patients and their loved ones. The sense of hearing is the last to fade as a person approaches death. Music invites listeners to be present to what is going on both inside and around them.
On June 30, Catharine DeLong will bring her experience as a certified music-thanatologist, contemplative musician, and chaplain to INELDA’s member-only webinar. In addition to a presentation and an opportunity for Q&A, Catharine will demonstrate how she engages as a music-thanatologist with a dying person.
Music-thanatology is a sub-specialty of palliative medicine. The music-thanatologist works with the raw materials of music: melody, harmony, and rhythm. The focus of the work is to deliver prescriptive music to help alleviate physical pain, and emotional or spiritual suffering.
Catharine DeLong currently serves individuals nearing the end of life as a music-thanatologist and chaplain for Aspire Home Health & Hospice patients in Salt Lake City, UT. Prior to COVID-19 she delivered music sessions to palliative patients at Bellevue Hospital, Mount Sinai, and also individuals served by Visiting Nurse Service Hospice of New York, NY. As a core faculty member of the New York Open Center’s Art of Dying Institute, she presents two workshops: Introduction to Thanatology and Music as Medicine at the End of Life. Catharine also provides remote music sessions for COVID-19 patients, and end-stage breast cancer patients affiliated with the You Can Thrive Foundation. As a composer and performer she collaborates with Colors in Motion, a creative consortium that brings calming audio-visual meditations to public spaces.
This webinar is for INELDA members. Not a member? Learn more
