Elizabeth Terhune

I first combined music and therapeutic care for community-dwelling and long-term care institutionalized individuals living with dementia as an oncology massage therapist and a hospice volunteer in the early 2000s. I developed and delivered the Abbott Road Project (2010-2012) to provide quarterly clinic days integrating oncology massage and expressive therapy supports (music, art, movement) to individuals living with cancer and their caregivers and to provider mentorship and community in evidence-based practice for New England-based oncology massage therapists. The participants included individuals living with progressing dementia. This work led me into nursing, and I became a nurse practitioner specializing in palliative care. Inspired by my time as a long-term care inpatient palliative care provider and interested in the neurocognitive and existential benefits provided by music and singing, I began a PhD program in 2022 in nursing research. My goal has been to explore and cultivate additional toolsets to promote change in how dysphagia, delirium, and frailty can be addressed through music-based interventions in long-term care settings for individuals living with dementia and for their caregivers. I continue to work as an inpatient palliative care nurse practitioner and continue to teach and mentor physicians and nurse practitioners in training in the field, integrating music into this work ongoing, now with veterans. I have also created and am completing a practicum integrating work with music therapists, speech and language pathologists, clinicians, nursing, and nursing assistants in supporting quality of life and wellbeing for individuals living with dementia in Boston-based long-term care settings as I move toward the dissertation phase of my PhD work. I plan to leverage my learning from these collaborations into my research and continued teaching, precepting, and multidisciplinary efforts to enhance quality of life and care for these individuals while also continuing as a bedside palliative care nurse practitioner in acute and chronic care settings.