It is reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association for February 9 that in the United States the first organisation of practitioners of music therapy was in 1950. It was then the National Association of Music Therapy, but later became the American Music Therapy Association. This organisation sponsors educational training leading to certification as a music therapist.
There are some 8,000 certified practitioners in the US and Canada. By comparison, the estimated numbers are 1,800 in Germany, 1,000 in Brazil, 500 in the United Kingdom and 300 in Australia.
The settings in which music therapists are engaged include nursing homes, geriatric and psychiatric units and physical rehabilitation units, both in the private and in the public domains. However, less than one quarter of the practitioners are said to be in private practice.
Evidence presented at the Ninth World Congress of Music Therapy held in Florida at the end of 1999 indicated that music is used as part of the clinical treatment of communication disorders, cognitive impairment and neurological conditions such as brain injury, stroke and dementias, to reduce stress, anxiety, agitation and depression. It is also used to induce relaxation in some natural processes such as labour in childbirth. Future progress must be dependent on demonstrations that music therapy is effective in the areas where it is applied, so that funds will be made available from health care organisations.
A fairly new concept is that rhythmic auditory stimulation is able to improve muscular activity and co-ordination in patients suffering from walking disabilities as the sequel of stroke or Parkinson's disease, and this would, if proven, add considerably to the uses of music in medicine.