A well-known symptom for patients with depression and bipolar diagnosis is poor quality of sleep. This has a major impact on the quality of life for the individual. Most recently, an article in the Cochrane Review, Music for insomnia in adults, concludes that music may be effective for improving sleep quality in adults with insomnia symptoms [1].

A Research Project at Aalborg University Hospital, Psychiatry, in Denmark has been initiated involving psychiatrists and nurses from an outpatient unit and researchers and music therapists from the Music Therapy Research Clinic at the hospital in an innovative collaboration. A pilot project is started, where patients with depression are given a sound pillow with special designed playlists, offering selected calm music for the patients to use at home for a period of 30 days. The listening periods are registered by the patients. Questionnaires are filled out before and after the listening period. A short semi-structured interview is taking place four times throughout the listening period and as a follow-up, when patients come in for control.

The aim is to investigate, whether music listening is helpful to improve sleep quality and quality of life, and to investigate if music listening can limit or replace medication. Discussion of first results.