The definition of health according to the World Health Organization:

“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

Each person is seen as a well-balanced unity in which the body and the spirit are very closely connected. Consequently, medical personnel should consider this wholeness in any given therapeutic situation and try to provide a global approach to the patient. This has lead to a “biological-psychological-social approach”, which considers all the parameters that influence the patients’ health and the applied cure, and requires a multidisciplinary approach that includes the actual treatment, as well as logistical and organizational aspects.”

(Bertolotti Marina, “L’assistenza ai Bambini Malati di Tumore, in Lassitenza ai Bambini Malati di Tumore – Manuale per la formazione dei volontari, op. cit. p.51)

Clinical Commission of the World Federation of Music Therapy

Music Therapy is the professional use of music and its elements as an intervention in medical, educational and everyday environments with individuals, groups, families, or communities who seek to optimize their communication, relations, learning processes, expression, organization and other aspects which help to cater for their physical, mental, social and cognitive needs. Its goal is to improve, or re-establish the individual functions of people in order to establish and reinforce interpersonal relations and consequently improve the overall quality of life.

(Oberegelsbacher dorothea e Rezsadore Giovanna, “Il Potere di Euterpe”, Milano, ED. Franco Angeli, 2008.