How to ‘Discover the Beauty of Life’ in / against the Disease? Musicology in the Therapy for the Elderly with Oncological Illnesses

Cooperation between the Institute of Musicology of the University of Warsaw and ‘Jestem’ Foundation began in 2013. The Foundation aims to support adults (especially elderly people) with chronic or terminal illnesses. The so-called ‘hour on beauty’, the Foundation's innovation introduced as part of the schedule of activities for patients, takes the form of weekly meetings with interesting persons (journalists, actors, travellers, etc.), and in the last several years – also with students of musicology. Cooperation involves regular facultative classes at which teams of musicology students prepare educational-therapeutic projects subsequently implemented at the Foundation's seat as part of the ‘hour on beauty’. The paper presents the model of cooperation worked out over the years and examples of original projects implemented by musicology students. The diversity of topics has been discussed here along with effective methods of patient activation (such as task-oriented listening, joint singing, and improvisation using everyday objects). The Foundation's work fills a gap in the Polish health care system resulting from the National Health Fund (NFZ) only financing stationary and home-based hospices but not designating any resources for day-care hospices targeting those oncological patients who need not be permanently hospitalised. The Foundation strives to prevent their exclusion and to improve the quality of their lives as well as their well-being. The benefits of the cooperation are invaluable. There is no doubt that this project (innovative on the Polish scale) reveals a new and potentially surprising function of musicology in the contemporary world.