Emotion Medicine (EMOMED): Musicians and animals during critical illness and death
This anthropological project explores the emotional dimensions of care that emerge through encounters with music and animals at Danish hospitals and hospices. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, it examines patient personhood and how patients, families and staff respond to live music and animal visits.
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By introducing the concept of “Emotion Medicine,” the project investigates what music and animals enable and evoke, and how these interactions acknowledge patient personhood and provide compassion. Through participant observation at hospitals and hospices, emotional moments are studied in detail as they unfold. This is combined with in-depth interviews as well as online studies of social media representation of music and animals. “Modern medicine is characterized by constant technological innovations aimed at treating and curing patients. However, in critical illness, patients, families and staff experience emotional and existential suffering that these advanced technologies cannot ease. This project addresses this challenge of today’s health care system”, Anja Marie Bornø Jensen, PI. |
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EMOMED explores the recent introductions of animals (dogs, horses, and alpacas) and live music in Danish hospitals and hospices. Although musicians and animals appear very different, former studies and testimonies indicate that both seem able to do something extraordinary when they visit and engage with critically ill patients. The project asks how these social interactions affect and reconfigure patient personhood, and how unique emotional moments of relief, hope, and connectivity are created. More broadly, it raises the question of how health services can be improved through “emotion medicine”. This implies developing new metrics and a broader understanding of evidence that encompass both emotions and quantitative evidence. |
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The EMOMED project consists of four work packages divided by empirical focus and project responsibilities. Work Package 1 This work package is an exploration of the emotional dimensions of music in critical illness and death, carried out by postdoc Ida Vandsøe Madsen. It includes 6 months of ethnographic fieldwork at Danish hospitals, observing live music and interviewing musicians, patients, families and staff. Work Package 2 In this work package, postdoc Simone Anna Felding explores the emotional dimensions of animal facilitated compassion and care. This is done through 6 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Danish clinical and palliative settings, observing animal visits and interviewing owners, patients, families and staff. Work Package 3 This work package consists of document analysis and digital ethnography to study the clinical use and the social media representations of music and animals in critical illness, nationally and internationally. This work is carried out by Research Assistant Josephine Rudbech. Work Package 4 |
Work package 4 represents the collaborative effort of the research team to think across field sites and compare insights. As Principal Investigator, Anja Marie Bornø Jensen visits field sites, ensures project coherence, and takes responsibility for conceptualizing “emotion medicine”.
Publications
Jensen, A. M. B., & Green, S. (2026). Skal snuder i søjlediagrammer? Musik og dyr som innovation i sundhedsvæsenet. Bibliotek for Laeger, 2(2). https://ugeskriftet.dk/bfl/skal-snuder-i-soejlediagrammer
Invited talks and keynotes
Lecture on “Emotion Medicine: Musicians and Animals in Critical Illness and Death – a visual story about the journey” at the annual meeting in Dansk Selskab for Sundhedsantropologi, by Anja Marie Bornø Jensen. May 15, 2025.
Invited talk on “Music as Emotion Medicine” at the seminar Care & Technology at the End of Life, by Ida Vandsøe Madsen. The seminar was co-organized by Nordic Network for Gender, Body and Health, Copenhagen Centre for Health Research in the Humanities (CoRe) and KU-CARI Sammen om aldring. April 15, 2026.
Seminars and guests
From September 1, 2026, Julie Born Schwartz is joining the EMOMED project as guest researcher for two months. Schwartz is currently doing an artistic practice based PhD at Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland and University of Art and Design Linz, Austria. Her PhD project is called: “APPROACHING DEATH: transforming our conversations around fear of dying”.
The project is inspired and guided by an advisory board of the following experts:
TV appearance in the Danish documentary “Med livet i hænderne”, about everyday life at Denmark’s most specialized hospital. The project appears in season 4, episode 3, 16:57 – 20:00. It portrays the anthropological fieldwork on music in the clinic and the research collaboration with MusikBeriget (work package 1).
Med livet i hænderne: Sæson 4 | Se online her | DRTV
Principal Investigator (PI)
Anja Marie Bornø Jensen
Associate Professor
Phone: +45 35 33 73 17
E-mail: anja.jensen@sund.ku.dk
Funding: Carlsbergfondet
Project site: Emotion Medicine (EMOMED): Musicians and Animals during Critical Illness and Death | Carlsbergfondet.dk
Project period: Oktober 2025 – December 2029
List of researchers
| Name | Title | Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search in Name | Search in Title | Search in Phone | |
| Anja Marie Bornø Jensen | Associate Professor | +4535337317 | |
| Ida Vandsøe Madsen | Postdoc | ||
| Josephine Rudbech | Research Assistant | ||
| Simone Anna Felding | Postdoc |