(Riverton, WY) – Central Wyoming College (CWC) student Keegan Thacker is leading a three-week music therapy study this semester, which wraps up this week.
The study is dedicated to testing the impacts of music on the emotions of people in nursing homes.
On Tuesday, April 25 Thacker organized a concert for the residents at Wind River Rehab in Riverton.
Three bands performed: the Central Wyoming Quintet, Ben Evans & Linsey Lesser, and the South Pass Jazz Band.
Several residents could be spotted in the audience singing along to the songs they knew while they listened to the bands play.
In addition to the concert, the participants filled out four questionnaires. Two before the concert and two after (the last one happening this week).
Thacker is a music major, but started out doing this study for a psychology class. The main roadblock was the fact that CWC doesn’t have an Institutional Review Board (IRB).
“I talked to my professor about it, and we started to work on getting it prepared,” Thacker shared. “At first, we took it to the professor’s boss, and then it kept going up the chain, and eventually, it went to the Board of Academics at CWC. And we got it approved. So it is an actual CWC study. I actually think it’s probably one of the first studies they’ve ever done because of them not having an IRB.”
County 10 will share any findings from this study released by CWC.
