When Janice Stumpf enters a building, she is aware of the sounds the building makes, the hum of fluorescent lights, the scrapes and thuds of doors, the clicking of shoes on carpet or tile.

Stumpf, however, wasn’t always aware of these sounds and tones. She had to train her ear to pick up the sounds her 12-year-old son, Giovanni, who has autism, is aware of all the time.

Stumpf said one of the greatest assistance she and her family have received in understanding what Giovanni’s sensitive ears pick up, has come from Whidbey General Hospital’s music therapist Barbara Dunn.

For the past two years, Dunn has worked with Giovanni using music to help him learn to speak and express himself. Giovanni is one of many examples of how music is used as a medical service and therapeutic form.

Music therapy at WGH

In the past two years, Dunn has helped create a music therapy program for WGH and some of their out patient programs and related community services, such as Health Home and Hospice.

Music therapy isn’t new as a therapeutic form, but compared to some form of therapy in local hospitals, this one is still in it’s developing state. It is, however, a rapidly developing service at WGH.

Dunn said music therapy takes musical means, instruments, theory and practice to address, aid and/or relieve physical, psychological, social, emotional and cognitive challenges.

“In an instant, it can make a difference,” she said.

Judy Moore, WGH’s assistant administrator for home and community services, said administrators and staff began a process to implement three new services to those the hospital offers in 2001. Since then, they have added massage therapy, acupuncture and music therapy.

“We were interested in disciplines that could add to our patients’ experiences here,” she said.

Moore said she hired Dunn as a professional who knew the local community, had a great deal of experience in music and also had experience in social services.

In the past few years, Dunn has initiated and helped introduce a music therapy plan for the hospital. She said as a music therapist, it is her job to find out what is the best way music can help an individual, from easing pain to helping with labor and delivery breathing, from soothing a grieving soul to helping a child learn to speak.

She said an important part of the job is learning to asses a situation, read the environment and discern what form of music will help the most in setting a tone, in soothing, calming or lifting someone’s spirit.

Some of the steps Dunn has taken to expand what the WGH music therapy service has to offer is gives patients the option of playing music in every room throughout the hospital, installing sound systems in medical/surgical rooms, recruiting the involvement of local musicians to play live music throughout the hospital, going out to home-bound patients and spending time with them and playing with them or for them and assisting in several therapy and clinical programs through the musical discipline.

Dunn said she thinks music is one thing that can transcend memory, experience, pain, fear and trauma.

Music therapy intern

This year Dunn accepted the first interns into the WGH music therapy program. Alison Cocovich, 26, who is from San Jose, Calif. and attends Marylhurst University in Oregon, will complete her six month university internship with WGH in August of 2005. Cocovich’s internship requires 1,200 hours of clinical training. In fulfilling these hours, she said she has enjoyed the interaction with patients and watching them open up to a stranger simply by sharing a song or the playing of an instrument. One of Cocovich’s favorite branches of music therapy is children’s music therapy, because she said she remembers what music meant to her as a child, and how it was a means of expression for her throughout her childhood.

Cocovich said she hopes to find a hospital and do work similar to Dunn’s when she finishes her university degree. In the mean time, she spends her days working with patients at WGH. Giovanni Stumpf is one of the children she spends her time assisting Dunn with.

Music therapy patient

Stumpf said since working with music therapists, Giovanni is learning to follow directions and explain how he feels through songs.

She said Dunn and the music therapy program has helped her and her family understand what Giovanni’s gifts are, what he is sensitive to and what he reacts positively or negatively to.

The music therapy program helped her understand that Giovanni’s sensitive ears make transitions from one environment to another, or one room to another overwhelming. Understanding this, allowed Stumpf to take an active role in assisting these transitions.

“Everything has a sound and a musical tone. Music helps with transitional times and to avoid behavior problems,” she said. “He uses headphones when he is going to go in or out of a room or building.”

The family was also able to identify the fact that Giovanni is very musically oriented.

“He has great rhythm,” Stumpf said.

Discovering this, Dunn has tried to help Giovanni imitate speech by following the tone of speech, the rhythm of sentences and the beat of syllables.

“Barbara has been working with him on how to answer questions clearly,” Stumpf said.

Dunn has also made Giovanni tapes with directional and instructional songs that he can listen to and sing along with. These tapes have helped him become more expressive, Stumpf said. And one of the tapes that goes through a series of emotions has allowed the family to communicate feelings and understand how Giovanni feels on a daily basis.

“The behavior modification and the speech increase has been dramatic,” she said.

Overall, Stumpf said music therapy is a valuable asset and form of medical and social therapy. She said she appreciates the work Dunn and Cocovich have invested into her son.

“I’d say we’re making great advances in his Individual Education Plans,” she said.

Stumpf said anyone who has never had the opportunity to fully communicate with their child understands what these small steps in expression and communication mean to a parent, and why she would feel so thankful to have a program to facilitate such progress, like WGH’s music therapy program.