Purpose: The purpose of this study was to review and analyze the trend and issues of nursing researches on music therapy for the elderly in order to generate helpful instructions and methods for developing better music therapy programs for the elderly. Method: Fifty-two dissertations and published articles related to music therapy in nursing from 1983 to February 2004 were reviewed. They were analyzed according to the following factors: published year, origin of research, research design, subject, sample size, type of music therapy, duration of experiment, genre of music, dependant variables and their effect. Result: Among fifty-two researches on music therapy published, forty-two (80.8%) were dissertations and ten (19.2%) were published articles. Only nine researches among these were carried out on the elderly. Fifty (96.2%) researches were based on experiments whereas two (3.8%) were non- experimental researches. Among fifty experimental researches, forty-two(80.8%) were on Quasi-Experimental research designs, six (11.5%) were the pre-experimental designs, and two (3.8%) were the true experimental designs. In nine researches mentioned in No.1, six Quasi-Experimental researches and three pre-experimental researches were conducted on the elderly. The number of subjects on surgical/anesthesia patients outnumbered (18 researches, 36%) then it was followed by the subjects on the elderly by nine researches (18%). Listening to music program was the vast majority in different programs of music therapy (38 researches, 76%). The majority number of subject fell in 31-40 range by 15 researches. The different music therapy programs on the elderly included listening to music, listening to music with singing, listening to music with singing and dancing, singing with musical instruments, and etc. The average duration of session was 30-60 minutes. The genre of music was mainly selected by preference of subjects. And old folk songs and contemporary songs were mostly selected. Researches on music therapy program measures different dependant variables as follows: depression (26.3%), emotion (21.1%), cognition (15.8%), balance and flexibility (10.5%), blood pressure, pain, and quality of life (5.3%). Conclusion: We are in urgent need to develop systematic music therapy programs with different nursing intervention which are based on theories and principles while considering physical, psychological, and social characteristic of the elderly with their personal music preference.