PORTLAND, Ore. — Imagine the joy a mobile music cart with bedside marimbas, karaoke screens, and iPod charging stations can bring a seriously ill child. With the help of a $10,000 Regence Foundation grant, music therapists at the Children’s Cancer Association will be able to bring three new carts to hospitalized youngsters at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital and the Children’s Hospital at Legacy Emanuel.

The program, called MusicRx®, provides in-room, one-on-one music experiences for hospitalized children, as well as on-call palliative music for children and their families at end-of-life. The program serves more than 2,500 children and teens each year through regional medical facilities, including the Children’s Hospital at Legacy Emanuel, Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, CARES Northwest, Oregon Burn Center, Shriners Hospital for Children, and Legacy Salmon Creek Hospital.

"Nothing can transform a person’s mood or attitude like music," said Michael Alexander, Regence Foundation board chair. "Music therapy is one of the best non-medical treatments out there to help seriously ill children and teens feel a little better."

The new carts will be mobile and small enough to fit in hospital rooms. They will be wrapped in a skin that says "Music is my med," and will feature flat screen video monitors for karaoke parties, iPod charging stations, song-writing equipment, music synthesizers, drums, and bedside marimbas. They will also have Soundbeam technology to help children with compromised verbal or motor skills make music. Soundbeam sensors pick up any movement – even the blink of an eyelid – and transform it into music.

"One person that I worked with who really benefitted from the music cart was a young teen who was a quadruple amputee; she had lost her arms and legs from meningococcal meningitis," said Mary Turina, president of the Children’s Cancer Association. "Even though she had very limited mobility, she could dance in front of the Soundbeam and make beautiful music."