Caleb Hastings
Music Therapist | Omaha Children’s Hospital & Medical Center
Caleb Hastings joined Children’s Nebraska in 2020 as a music therapist working with patients in the hospital’s palliative care program.
“Music therapy within the palliative care program is much more patient-directed rather than prescriptive,” said Caleb. “My job is to be as creative as I can to improve their days based on their goals and do whatever it is that they’re looking for. Sometimes what that is for them is autonomy and control, sometimes it is processing difficult life events. I just want to be there for them to support them in that moment through music, whatever it is they are asking for.”
When kids are dealing with pain and stress, they only have so much bandwidth to process what is happening and can become easily overwhelmed. “When someone is focused on making music – something that requires motor skills, speech, and emotional engagement, that leaves a lot less space for the stuff that is worrisome or scary,” said Caleb.
Pain Management Grant
2020
RHYTHM Therapy – Rehabilitation & Healing Youth Through Music Therapy
$49,000
Update from Caleb Hastings | March 2024 | I had a teenage patient whose diagnosis and treatment all took place in a matter of months. This patient loves swimming and being on the cheer team, so staying still for long durations for chemo were very stressful for them. This patient is also very shy. We discussed their favorite songs. And they specifically pointed to 3 songs. 1 that was encouraging and hopeful, 1 that was somewhat bleak and focused on the listener’s identity, and 1 with the prevailing message being that this moment right now is what matters; enjoy the moment and give the past and future a break. Each of these songs presented excellent opportunities for this patient to be able to describe her feelings as they identified with their favorite music. We will hopefully be writing our own songs shortly.
There is a young patient with a poor prognosis due to their type of cancer. However, this patient remains very active and dislikes being in his room and not being able to move around. We found an empty space that was unused at the time and created a musical obstacle course out of large drums, guitars, and various other instruments. We also played nonverbal tag, where one “tags” someone by making eye contact and sounding their instrument. There was lots of running and laughing. This patient was more compliant with medications and activities of daily living after this session, which created an opportunity to release some of his cabin fever and be himself in the hospital.
There is a patient I met in an outpatient context; we had several “check in” sessions over the course of months, but this patient never reported any needs. During a session when she did allow music therapy, we discussed recording her heartbeat and adding music to it as a gift to her family. The discussion led to a warm family discussion about how music has been part of their lives and the songs the family has bonded over. During future inpatient stays she also has ambitions to learn the piano and ukulele.