Introduction: Stress can be experienced by everyone, including the elderly. Stress cannot be eliminated from a person's life, but everyone can make efforts to lower the stress levels. The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of gamelan as a music therapy to decrease the stress levels of the elderly in Lawangan – Lamongan. Method:This study used pre-experimental design with one group pretest and posttest. Simple random sampling was used and the sample size was 38 elderly from total population of 42 elderly. The data of this study was taken using questionnaire and observation. After being tabulated, the data were analyzed using Wilcoxon Rank Signal Test with significance level p =<0.05. Result: The results showed that before giving treatment gamelan music therapy, elderly people experiencing moderate stress were 81.6 percent and 18.4 percent experiencing severe stress. After being given gamelan music therapy, 60.5 percent experienced mild stress, 26.3 percent experienced moderate stress and 13.2 percent did not experience stress (normal). After doing the statistical test, it was obtained that the mean score of stress before being given the treatment was 24.37, while the mean score after being given the treatment decreased into 17,97 with the score of Z= -5.097 and p=0.000 which means that there was effect of gamelan music therapy in decreasing the stress levels of elderly. Discussion: To overcome stress in the elderly, gamelan music therapy is an alternative treatment non pharmacological that can be used to reduce stress levels.
Keywords: Music Therapy, Gamelan, Stress, Elderl
