A Systematic Review of Music Therapy for Symptoms of Traumatic Brain Injury and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Adults

Abstract

Music therapy (MT) is implemented in healthcare settings for a range of symptoms and conditions. This systematic review provides an update of the available evidence by searching a combination of keywords related to MT, traumatic brain injury (TBI), and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) across four databases (PubMed, PsycINFO, PTSDpubs, Scopus) from inception to February 2025. We included randomized controlled trials, controlled clinical trials, quasi-experimental, cohort, observational, and pre-post longitudinal studies with at least 20 participants. Eligible participants were adults with TBI and/or PTSD, including participants with both diagnosed and subclinical conditions. We included studies that either examined the impact of MT (i.e., music interventions facilitated by board-certified music therapists [MT-BCs]) or used music for therapeutic purposes (i.e., music interventions facilitated by non-MT-BCs) either as the sole intervention or combined with other treatment modalities. Of the 446 studies screened, six studies met the eligibility criteria. For both TBI and PTSD, two studies on music therapy and one study that examined music instruction were included. Methodological weaknesses and imprecision of effect size estimates precluded making any strong conclusions. The current evidence is too inconclusive to generalize findings widely, however, there is potential use of MT for treating symptoms due to TBI and PTSD in the context of interdisciplinary neurorehabilitation. Advancing the clinical implementation of MT for these populations will hinge on future research that has more detailed descriptions of MT interventions, standardizing MT protocols, using common clinical outcome measures across studies, and incorporating widely used and validated measures of TBI and PTSD. [250 words]