Vanya Green played her guitar and sang while a room full of children rattled shakers, pounded drums and sang along.
It is a rarity that these children at Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA are all in a room together because many are in critical isolation and cannot leave their rooms.
Green, a music therapist, generally works one on one with the children at their bedsides. The children are rarely in a group setting.
But Friday an exception was made. The children demonstrated their musical talents to Rock Against Cancer and the Hot Topic Foundation, who presented the music therapy program at Mattel Children’s Hospital with a $10,000 donation.
This is the second year the foundations have donated to the music therapy program. The first year they donated $20,000 to help start the program.
The Rock Against Cancer foundation was started by Lisa White after her youngest son, Gabriel, was diagnosed with and overcame childhood leukemia. He was 2 years old when he began the treatment that went on for 38 months.
White and her son remember being soothed by the music of a harp player in the waiting room of the hospital where Gabriel was being treated. This experience sparked the idea for Rock Against Cancer.
The organization has also helped to create eight music therapy centers, one of which is at Mattel. The foundation also takes children to concerts, such as Beyonce, Gwen Stefani and Matchbox Twenty, where they sit in the front row for the performance and are able to meet the artists.
Green is the board-certified music therapist the hospital hired after receiving the first donation from Rock Against Cancer and the Hot Topic Foundation. She mostly works in the pediatric intensive care unit and the chemotherapy and oncology unit, which is where children diagnosed with cancer are treated.
While working with the children, she sometimes records herself singing with the children, so they will also have something to enjoy when she is not there.
It also serves as a tool that parents can use, since the music helps parents to connect with their children, Green said.
The benefits of music therapy are many: It can serve as a distraction, it can help to stimulate a child emotionally, it can help a child to relax and reduce his anxiety, and it can make the hospital environment feel more like home, Green said.
Music therapy also helps children express their emotions.
“Music serves as a container for emotions which appear or feel to be without limit. Music helps create a boundary for feelings and gives meaning to them,” Green said.
Music becomes one of the more positive aspects of the whole experience of being in the hospital.
“It activates parts of the brain that are important pleasure sensations, which help children experience joy,” Green said.
Ashanti Barnes, a 9-year-old patient at Mattel Children’s Hospital who was singing and drumming along with Green and the other children, enjoys the music program.
“It’s fun!” she said.
The music therapy program is continuing to apply for other grants in order to expand the program and serve more children.
The program is also looking into having youth music groups come in once a month, said Dr. Edward McCabe, physician-in-chief at Mattel Children’s Hospital.