Listen, Breathe, Move- A pilot workshop for informal/family caregivers Grant uri icon

abstract

  • Ford M, Steiner-Brett A, &; Das BM (Co-PI/Faculty Mentor). Spring 2023, Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Awards for East Carolina University, Listen, Breathe, Move- A pilot workshop for informal/family caregivers, $1500.
  • The intent of this project is to pilot a virtually delivered single session workshop to informal/family caregivers (ICGs) incorporating yoga and music therapy. The purpose of the workshop is to investigate the acceptability and feasibility of this novel intervention, which involves combined yoga physical activity and music therapy techniques for guided breathing and relaxation of ICG of adult care receivers (defined as over 18 years of age). ICGs have been noted to experience decreased physical and psychological wellbeing due to the complex demands of their care duties. This workshop seeks to combine techniques from evidenced-based practices to understand more fully the potential acceptance and participation of this population to inform future intervention delivery with a more robust sample size. The pilot seeks to deliver the workshop one or two times (desired N=15; max N=10 per session) with participants attending one session. The session will be delivered synchronously via teleconferencing platform with introductory yoga led by the co-mentor (Das) on the project and music for guided breathing and music-assisted relaxation led by the primary student investigator, who will be trained in relevant techniques by the faculty mentor (Steiner-Brett). The workshop will be advertised with various community and aging agencies for recruitment of participants. The project will include training the student investigator on the music therapy techniques in the session and collaboration with mentors on the workshop protocol, facilitation of 1-2 virtually delivered sessions and working with faculty mentor on the analysis of the data. Faculty mentors will be primarily responsible for development of descriptive survey measures used for acceptability and feasibility measures, with student mentor involved in the development process. The student will co-present findings with faculty mentor(s) at local, regional and/or national conferences in music therapy and other related areas. Additionally, this pilot project data will be used to develop an NIH R 15 proposal examining a more robust yoga and music therapy multi-session intervention for ICGs.

date/time interval

  • February 2022 - March 2022