Louis Armstrong

Welcome to the Music Therapy Department at Beth Israel Medical Center. Our programs have been funded through a generous grant from the Louis Armstrong Foundation since 1994. Additional funding from the Charles Lawrence Keith and Clara Miller Foundation, the Grammy Foundation and various estates directed by hospital trustee Richard Netter has enabled us to grow and expand into rich and exciting clinic areas and community research endeavors.

The music therapists of the Louis & Lucille Armstrong Music Therapy Program conduct daily sessions with patients in many areas of the hospital: NICU, Pediatrics, Family Medicine, Maternity, Oncology, Respiratory Step Down, ICU's, Peter Kruger Clinic, Orthopedics, Hospice, Maplethorpe Residence, Pain Medicine and Palliative Care, and Sickle Cell Disease.

Music therapists within The Louis Armstrong Center for Music & Medicine provide clinic services in the community. Our new Center has launched several outpatient services in clinics and schools. Two innovative programs incorporate mind-body techniques for adults in both pulmonary and cardiac rehabilitation: Music for AIR (Advances in Respiration) and Music for CAIR (Cardiac Advances in Rehabilitation). Our Asthma Initiative Program (AIP) helps children and teens with asthma in the school or community environments using music visualization and winds (recorders and flutes).

The Music & Health Clinic serves the unique health care needs of musicians and performing artists, linking performance-related ailments to medical and clinical music therapy services. We are proud to host a medical director, a team of music therapists and specialized doctors who can attend to the physical and emotional needs of the musician and performing artist.

The Louis Armstrong Music Therapy Department provides a broad range of services throughout the medical center and within the community. Our mission ensures that our staff provides state-of-the-art care to complement medical treatment. Our team is trained to offer the most current music psychotherapy techniques in clinical improvisation, music meditation, pain management, sedation, end-of-life, and breathing modalities of music and healing. We are affiliated with New York University, Hahnemann Creative Arts in Therapy Program at Drexel University in Philadelphia and the American Music Therapy Association. Our music therapy team is comprised of six music therapists and six graduate and undergraduate music therapy interns carefully selected from universities across the country. We also provide training for international students during the summer. Our team conducts research in conjunction with doctors and nurses, providing the utmost care and creative attention to the patients and families we serve.