The journal article, Results From a Music, Imagery, and Movement Treatment Intervention

in a Long-Term Care Facility, which is published on February 2015 from Families in Society:
The Journal of Contemporary Social Services. The purpose of this paper is to identify,
summarize, and recognize the structure and formal features of this journal article. It will help
graduate students more familiar with writing research paper in their discipline.
In the article, Matto Tompkins, Ihara, Inoue, and Byrd (2015) find that the number of older
people is gradually increasing and some of them will be sent to a long-term care facility; and also
people who live in a long-term care facility might result in a lower quality of life and some
negative effects such as mental illness. In the past, only a small number of studies have discussed
this issue and does not provide a clear explanation about the effects of a music, imagery, and
movement (MiM) intervention to people who live in a long-term care facility. In addition, Matto
et al. (2015) find the exigence that most of previous articles lack of control groups, use small
population as samples, and describe the interventions in an ambiguous way. The authors primary
purpose is to measure the results of a MiM intervention treatment to older people who live in a
long-term care facility, so they may design various programs and observe those individuals
reflection to prove their assumptions. In order to verify the effects of the treatment, people aged
over 65 years and lived in a long-term care facility can be a participant, but not included those
residents who have mental illnesses and physical problems are unacceptable (Matto et al., 2015).
Matto et al. (2015) suggest that a MiM intervention can improve older individuals interior and
exterior issues such as mental illness and interpersonal interaction. Besides, service providers in
a long-term facility can use this treatment to design certain activities to increase residents wellbeing (Matto et al., 2015). Hence, through this treatment, people can maintain or increase their
mental and physical health and social functions and have a higher quality of life.

After understanding the content, I need to analyze and recognize the overall structure and
some formal features of this article. Based on these analytic information, it can suggest me that
what typical articles and features of a research paper in my discipline. According to the type of
research, this original research article with two methods to collect dataquantitative research
method and open-ended questions. In terms of the overall structure of the article, Matto et al.
(2015) do not totally follow the Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion (IMRD) format
(Swales & Feak, 2012). The article also includes Abstract, Reference, and Appendix. In Abstract,
the authors provide a short summary to briefly explain whole paper. In Introduction, the authors
state the phenomenon of previous studies; and also, a MiM treatment perhaps improve older
peoples emotional, cognitive functions and social interaction (Grayson, Lubin, & Van Whitlock,
1995; Kemp, Ball, Hollingsworth, & Perkins, 2011; Matto et al., 2015). This section not only
provides the current aging tendency to readers but also further explains creative arts activities
have positive effects to older people. This way helps readers to understand what the problem is
and why the authors want to use a MiM intervention as the examination method in study. In
Methods, the authors describe the examination design, the component of participants, the
measuring method, and the MiM intervention. They detailed explain how to use the MiM
treatment and exam the influence of the treatment to older residents aged over 65 and live in a
long-term care facility. This strategy can assist readers easily understanding the procedure of the
study and aid other scholars know the design of this research and help them to establish further
studies in the future. In Results, the writers organized and analyzed the data they collected from
the experiment. Matto et al. (2015) analyze the data collected from quantitative data and openended questions, which is designed based on the authors needs to achieve comprehensive data
and help them to find better results. In Discussion, Matto et al. (2015) do not directly show the

discussion on the paragraphs title. The authors replace discussion with Implications for
Practice as the title, which is the common title used in social work, because it focuses on the
meaning of the results and uses findings into practice. Also, it highlights the implication for
practice due to the submission requirement of the journal. The authors not only mention the MiM
intervention has positive effects to improve older people who live in a long-term care facility, but
also suggest that it can be one of the beneficial treatments for improving individuals interior
status and social relationships. In Reference, the authors put all articles information they
mentioned in this study, in order to avoid plagiarize.
Particularly, in this article, the section of introduction can be analyzed through Move 1, 2, and
3 in the create-a-research-space (CARs) model, which are establishing a research territory,
establishing a niche, and occupying the niche (Swales & Feak, 2012). Firstly, in Move 1, Matto
et al. (2015) introduce a situation of the population of over 65 years old Americans in the United
States in 2010 is 43.1 million or 13.7 percent of the population, and it may become to 79.7
million or 21 percent of the population in 2040 (Ortman, Velkoff, & Hogan, 2014; U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services [DHHS], 2013). It makes readers to know an aging
tendency and a large number of older people need a long-term care service due to the reasons of
certain mental or physical illness. Secondly, Swales & Feak (2012) explain that Move 2 points
out a gap in previous studies. Even though previous research has found certain evidence on the
perspective of benefits of creative arts, those studies have some limitations such as absence of
control groups or single population used as samples (Matto et al., 2015). The authors believe that
those limitations may not provide a strong enough outcome to support their findings. In this
article, past studies have shown that older people who live in residential care facilities may have
high risks on emotional, cognitive, and social perspectives and have lower quality of life, such as

depression and Alzheimers disease (Matto et al., 2015). This makes readers to understand the
importance of the problems and establish a concept that the large number of people with mental,
physical, and social issues will be increased in the future and become a severe social problem.
Lastly, the aspect of Move 3, it describes the purpose of current article. Matto et al. (2015) state
that the feasibility of MiM treatment to understand the influences of residents in a long-term care
facility. In Move 3, readers are able to know how do Matto et al. (2015) conduct this research
and what kinds of outcomes of expectation will be examined.
In this article, Matto et al. (2015) not only use a figure to help readers understand the
hypothesis but also creates some tables in the results section. These tables are able to encourage
readers quickly establish concepts of data collected, and the figure and tables can increase the
reliability of the authors analyses. This type of visual data is the most popular method in social
work field because it can easily and effectively understand the whole process. When the authors
cite previous or existing articles, they use APA citation style which is the general citation in my
discipline. Besides, using paraphrase to present previous studies rather than using direct quotes.
As a student of the department of social work, this research can give me an understanding that
a MiM intervention can improve older peoples health in many perspectives, like mental illness
prevention and facilitate social interaction. Also, the aging problem is one of the important issues
in social work fields because each social work may have clients who are over 65 years old. This
study can inspire me to design an activity with the concepts of the MiM intervention when
interning or working in a long-term care agency or an older people service agency. In addition,
this article includes most essential part of academic writing. It shows how the IMRD structure
and the CARs model can be used in an academic essay, how to develop a logical process to
demonstrate ideas in words, how to present visual data, and how to use previous scholarly

research.

References
Grayson, P., Lubin, B., & Van Whitlock, R. (1995). Comparison of depression in the communitydwelling and assisted-living elderly. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 51(1), 1921.
Kemp, C. L., Ball, M. M., Hollingsworth, C., & Perkins, M. M. (2011). Strangers and friends:
Residents social careers in assisted living. The Journals of Gerontology, Series B:
Psychosocial Sciences and Social Sciences, 67, 491502.
Matto, H. C., Tompkins, C. J., Ihara, E. S., Inoue, M., Byrd, A. (2015). Results from a music,
imagery, and movement treatment intervention in a long-term care facility. Families in
Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services, 96(4), 277-283. doi: 10.1606/10443894.2015.96.32
Ortman, J. M, Velkoff, V. A., & Hogan, H. (2014). An aging nation: The older population in the
United States. (Current Population Reports P25-1140). Washington, DC: U.S. Census
Bureau. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/prod/2014pubs/p25-1140.pdf
Swales, J. M., & Feak, C. B. (2012). Academic writing for graduate students: Essential tasks and
skills (3rd Edition). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Aging. (2013). A profile of
older Americans: 2013. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from
http://www.aoa.acl.gov/Aging_Statistics/Profile/2013/docs/2013_Profile.pdf