The National Endowment for the Arts is expanding its arts partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense to include music therapy for patients at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The new music-therapy program expands Operation Homecoming, a creative writing program for wounded soldiers, launched in December 2011 between the NEA and Walter Reed. The program will integrate music therapy into treatment for patients at Walter Reed Bethesda. It will focus on Neurologic Music Therapy, which uses science-based music techniques to improve cognitive, sensory, and motor function in patients with diseases that include stroke, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s. The expansion of Operation Homecoming was announced this fall at the Arts & Health in the Military National Roundtable and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which was attended by Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Rear Admiral Alton L. Stocks, Commander of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center; and NEA Chairman Rocco Landsman. The NEA and Walter Reed will partner on these efforts through 2015.
Posted November 28, 2012
