The use of music in palliative care: humanizing care and facilitating the farewell

Living with a life-threatening disease may affect such individual and their families in various dimensions (physical, emotional, spiritual, social and economic) and require sensitive and attentive care provided by a multidisciplinary team, to deal with this unique and delicate situation. This paper has the aim of reflecting on the contributions from using music in palliative care and in humanization of care, for people beyond the therapeutic possibilities of cure. With this purpose, a literature review was undertaken through electronic searches for articles indexed in databases and by manual searching among non-indexed periodicals relevant to this study. The investigation revealed that using music in health-disease-care processes may provide comfort and quality of life for sick individuals and may be a resource for helping in family relationships, in saying farewell to their beloved ones. It may also help in keeping the healthcare team healthy and integrated.