Treatment of Asthmatic Child through Music : An attempt tot establish a better mother-child regationship by means of music(Art Therapy)

Abstract

Bronchial asthma is regarded as a disease thich has various causes such as allergy, autonomic nervous disturbances, psychological upset, air pollution, weather, sex and age. Therefore this disease demands a comprehensive treatment which includes environmental improvement, physical training, pulmonary rehabilitation, psychological therapsy and prophylactic drug therapy. These therapies should be combined according to the condition of the patient. When an asthmatic child, however serious his or her condition is, lives asey from home and is placed under residential therapy, the child will get better and grow up mentally. But it is not rare that the child gets worse when he or she goes back home to stay one or some nights leaving hospital. In order to maintain the effect of residential therapy, it is important to improve the relationship between patient and parent while the child is in hospital. I have been conducting a therapy by use of music to improve the relationship between an asthmatic boy and his mother. I had session with a patient and his mother. First the patient and his mother chose their own favorite pieces of music, and then they work together to find pieces of music which both persons like. A few days later, the mother listened to the music which her child had chosen, and vice versa. I had therapeutic sessions with them at imtervals of four weeks. I conducted the therapy with two asthmatic pre-adolescent boys and the results are as follows : 1. By listening to the same pieces of music, the patient and his mother found common topic for their conversation and a desirable change was observed in the unhealthy and too-close retationship between patient and mother whose interest used to be centered around his asthmatic condition. 2. Listening to the music the child had chosen helped the mother understand him empathetically and accept his wish to be independent. 3. Although an asthmatic child is generally gassive toward developing contact with others, he can learn to associate with other children of the same generation through their interest in music. The present approach to asthmatic children through music still needs more experiments, but as it looks worthwhile, I would like to continue at the present study.