Music therapy--the rhythm of recovery.

Abstract Many people are influenced by music on a daily basis. Typically, with varying degrees of awareness, many of us use music to achieve some type of goal in our daily lives. Some use music during exercise to motivate ourselves and set the pace. Others use music at the end of the day to unwind and to relax. Some use it to keep calm in rush-hour traffic or to enhance the experience of a long road trip. Indeed, humans have used music for therapeutic purposes throughout recorded history. 1 By using music in a prescribed fashion with predictable results in the clinical setting, however, is a more recent development.