(ይህንን ፖስት (ልጥፍ) በአማርኛ ማንበብ ትችላላችሁ፡፡)

Music training at Lebeza Psychiatry Clinic was delivered by Music Therapists Emma and Erin in 2022. Eyerusalem Alemayehu and Dr Bisrat Begna participated in the training and, since then, Getenet Assefa has joined them to run music sessions too. Eyerusalem has been working at the clinic for almost seven years and is currently the Vice Chief Clinical Officer. Dr Bisrat, who has worked in the psychiatry field for 41 years, used to work at Gefersa Mental Rehabilitation Centre before joining Lebeza Psychiatry Clinic’s team around 8 years ago, where he is Head Nurse. Getenet has been working as an Attendant at the clinic for a year and a half.

Eyerusalem is responsible for the current daily activities offered by the clinic for inpatients and outpatients.  She also supervises the psychiatric nurses. After learning from one of her colleagues about music being used at Gefersa Mental Health Rehabilitation Centre, Eyerusalem wanted to bring music sessions to Lebeza Psychiatry Clinic. Music sessions were to be a new activity alongside other services for inpatients, such as book club, occupational therapy, and individual and group therapy.

We were looking at different activities to introduce to our patients. There were very few activities like indoors games and most of the time patients were requesting for additional activities. And it was a good opportunity for us to use music as therapy for our patients. The timing was also very nice for us. We were trying to reach for different things but it was very hard. Even we had different indoor games but the patients would get bored of them. 

Eyerusalem

As the Head Nurse at the clinic, Dr Bisrat has many responsibilities but mainly for the inpatients, where they include discussions with the medical doctor about patients, monitoring inpatients’ improvements, talking to patients’ families, and supervising other nurses.

Getenet’s role as an Attendant involves attending to the patients’ needs, such as medication management and assisting with patients’ personal hygiene; and he is seen as a valuable member of staff who is very caring towards patients. 

The inpatients ward has 35 beds available and most of the time the beds are occupied. Inpatients may stay at the clinic for a few weeks or up to 3 months which is based on the patient’s illness and progression. Before receiving music training in 2022, the clinic did not use music as a tool to provide care to their patients as members of staff had no experience or equipment to use music.  Now, whilst staying at the clinic, the patients have access to music sessions twice a week, every Monday and Friday afternoon.

Although it has been a while since their initial training, Eyerusalem remembered the introduction to music, learning from the music therapists to use music and eventually the music therapists showcasing sessions that included patients. The training introduced Eyerusalem to many instruments that she had never seen before, and she did not expect to see patients engaging with the music sessions so quickly.

During the first session Eyerusalem led, she included an activity with the ‘call and response’ method. Eyerusalem remembered leading the activity as a nice experience but there was the challenge of patients finding it difficult to follow the ‘call and response’ technique, so she appreciated Emma and Erin guiding her through it.

Dr Bisrat recalled feeling uneasy during the first music session carried out by Erin and Emma as the use of music was something new for the clinic and he was unsure how the patients might respond. Dr Bisrat observed how music could be a trigger to making some patients’ illness worse, especially bipolar patients as they could become more hyper and manic.  But as more sessions happened and there was a better understanding of how to use music to deal with challenging behaviours, Dr Birast began feeling more settled about the sessions. 

Dr Bisrat’s main reason for participating in the training was to gain knowledge about the use of music to be able to supervise music sessions led by other nurses. So during the training he did not lead a session and instead observed patients participating in sessions led by his colleagues to find out more about the impact of music on the patients.  He was particularly interested to observe their impact on the patients’ feelings.  Dr Bisrat would observe if there were any effects alongside patients’ medication, if patients were communicating with each other and if patients were willing to participate in sessions.

Although Getenet was not directly trained by Erin and Emma to use music, he can remember the first music session he ever saw that one of his colleagues led, in which he was impressed when seeing the patients engaging and enjoying themselves in the session. A while later, Getenet led a music session himself and remembers the patients being glad to see the musical instruments and to see him start the session, which was a happy moment for him. Getenet recognises that music sessions give patients the chance to get together and listen to each other.

The team tell us that the majority of patients at the clinic participate in music sessions, with the exception of a few people either due to religious reasons or their mental state. Sometimes, newly admitted patients can be shy to participate in music session but whilst some need encouragement there are others who are more willing to participate. For Dr Bisrat, bipolar patients willingly join in music sessions and although the sessions can sometimes make their behaviour more difficult, these patients still benefit as they enjoy themselves playing the instruments and become more open to talk about themselves. Sometimes these patients even remind staff of when the music sessions are supposed to start! Getenet has noticed how other patients who would usually be alone, depressed and not interact with others start to socialise more and become more responsive because of the music sessions. Music sessions have enabled Getenet to observe and get to know patients better.

For sad people, for schizophrenic patients…[music sessions] were very very very helpful for them, especially to form communication. Music can give motivational connection with others.

Dr Bisrat

The types of musical activities carried out by members of staff at the clinic remain very similar to those introduced by Emma and Erin, with additional encouragement from Dr Bisrat’s to keep them creative. The team remain interested to learn more about running 1-to-1 music sessions and how they might introduce these into their outpatients services.

Eyerusalem, Getenet and Dr Bisrat spoke about how they are proud of the music sessions and that they can be offered by the clinic.  It is impressive that they have been able to keep the sessions as a scheduled activity twice a week for more than a year.  The team are also proud when new connections are being created and friendships are being built between patients in the music sessions, and when they see patients are happy.  They all agree these benefits for patients are what makes the use of music in a therapeutic way important to Lebeza Psychiatry Clinic.

What is best for our patients is more than anything. So we have a significant positive impact on our patients and I would like to see this impact on another organisations. So I would recommend to any psychiatry facility to have this basic therapy sessions.          

Eyerusalem