SALT LAKE CITY, Ut – Being hospitalized is a difficult and often traumatic experience for anyone, but for children, it can be especially challenging. They are forced to endure painful medical treatments, unfamiliar people and separation from their families.
As a result, many children experience anxiety, depression, and other emotional challenges while in the hospital. But now, therapies that don’t involve any medications, needle pricks, or painful surgeries are helping kids heal.
This is more than just playtime for little Emmett Bleyle. Each song helps him heal.
“Emmet’s official diagnosis is PMM2 congenital disorder of glycosylation,” Emmett’s mom, Rylie, said.
Rylie was told her baby boy would not live to his first birthday.
“They didn’t think he had another six months in him. And here we are,” Rylie said.
Five-year-old Emmett averages two to three hospital stays a month with a care team of more than 18 specialists. His mother believes a key to his survival is playing the piano.
“I started seeing Emmett when he was like 18 months old. He was so small, and he couldn’t sit up,” Rylie said.
Katie Lahue, Expressive therapist at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital believes music, dance, art, and play helps hospitalized kids through the physical, emotional, and psychological issues that come with illnesses and long hospital stays.
“Music access is a different part of your brain than other modalities do. And so, through music and the arts, we’re able to accomplish different goals,” Lahue said.
Using music motivates kids like Emmett to work on different developmental goals.
“Sometimes we can reach these kiddos better than other providers here in the hospital can,” said Eliana Rivera, Music Therapist at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital.
Studies show expressive therapies help children manage their pain and anxiety, boost immunity, and contribute to faster physical healing.
“Letting Emmett emotionally reset that way through dancing and through singing and through playing with instruments and things like that, I think that’s kind of reset his body to the point where we’ve walked away for some instances that we shouldn’t have,” Rylie said.
The music therapists at Intermountain also do something called legacy work. They talk to the parents and work with them to create a song when their child is nearing their end of life. They play the song for the child and record it, creating a special memory for the parents.