Co-authored by mettle fatigue.
At the end of the diary is an introduction to the use of free MEDSCAPE links.
"Music has been largely ignored by the medical community as an optional or elective issue, [but it's not just a source of great entertainment and enjoyment] - it represents the most challenging auditory stimulus in the world." —Charles J. Limb, MD, Johns Hopkins Univ. School of Medicine New Test Assesses Music Perceptual Abilities in Children with Cochlear Implants
Music therapy is a real profession, complete with certifying boards. Of course, the most common question asked of music therapists is "What does a music therapist
do?" A stock answer, informative yet concise, is a must for these professionals. This is a good one from music therapist
Kimberly Sena Moore:
Simply put, music therapists use music to help people. We use music and music-based experiences to work on non-musical treatment goals. How we help them depends on who we are working with. We can use the rhythm in music to help a stroke victim re-learn how to walk. We can use a structured instrument playing experience to help children with autism learn and practice how to appropriately interact with their friends. We can use music listening to help lower the pain level for a hospital patient.
This diary, continued below, is the first in an occasional series on experience and research in the wide, often surprising and stirring range of ways we benefit by engagement with music.
KosAbility is a Sunday 7pm eastkost/4pm leftkost volunteer diarist series, as a community for people living with disabilities, who love someone with a disability, or who want to know more about the issues. Our use of "disability" includes temporary as well as permanent conditions, from small, gnawing health/medical problems to major, life-threatening ones. Our use of "love someone" extends to beloved members of other species.
Our discussions are open threads in the context of this community. Feel free to comment on the diary topic, ask questions of the diarist or generally to everyone, share something you've learned, tell bad jokes, post photos, or rage about your situation. Our only rule is to be kind; trolls will be spayed or neutered. If you are interested in contributing a diary, contact series coordinator postmodernista.
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My local hospital has a very nice custom. Whenever a baby is born they play a few bars of Brahm's Lullaby over the PA system. I've spent some dark days in that hospital. Hearing that lullaby never fails to lift my focus away from me and mine, reminding me in those brief and soothing moments that, somewhere, life goes on. If there's a heaven, I'd say whoever came up with that idea has earned their spot.
And what about the babies themselves? Do they like it? Do they even notice it? Well, there's a lot going on for them right about then, but I like to think the staff holds off on the music until things settle down a bit and the baby is given to the mother to hold.
If there's a question as to whether babies actually like music, I think the success of the Pacifier Activated Lullaby puts it to bed pretty conclusively. (Heh.) It's a system that triggers soothing music to play when a premature baby sucks on a pacifier correctly. This is crucial because:
"Unlike full-term infants, very premature babies come into the world lacking the neurologic ability to coordinate a suck/swallow/breathe response for oral feeding."
The longer it takes for a preemie to develop that coordination, the more their growth suffers. The PAL system makes a huge difference, increasing sucking rates by up to 2.5 times. With animals, we use food as a reward to facilitate training. For these babies, who are having trouble even
getting their food, music itself is clearly a reward. This is one positive outcome among many in the field of
music therapy for infants.
Lullabies are a constant in human history, as are all kinds of music; playing it, listening to it, composing it, teaching it, experiencing it physically —as complex body vibration— as well as emotionally, dancing to it, and studying/learning music skills. Most of us have noticed feeling better and often functioning better emotionally, cognitively, even physically, when we're around music we experience as positive.
In preparing disabled or "normie" children for adult life, it's good to know that childhood music practice provides benefits for decades, and in More Evidence That Music Benefits the Brain:
A trio of new studies ["Start Music Lessons Early", "Music Training Influences Multiple Senses", "Musical Improv Strengthens Brain Circuits"] demonstrates that musical training affects the structure and function of different regions of the brain, how those regions communicate during the creation of music, and how the brain processes different sensory stimuli. These insights point to potential new roles [for music in] fostering brain plasticity, treating learning disabilities, and as an alternative educational tool.
Music and rhythm are intimately woven into human physicality. Playing a musical instrument is:
...a multisensory and motor experience that creates emotions and motions —from finger tapping to dancing— and engages pleasure and reward systems in the brain. It has the potential to change brain function and structure when done over a long period of time," Gottfried Schlaug, MD, PhD, from Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, an expert on music, neuroimaging, and brain plasticity, said [at the 2013 annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience]... "These new findings show that intense musical training generates new processes within the brain, at different stages of life, and with a range of impacts on creativity, cognition, and learning."
Somewhat surprisingly, music can have a measurable effect on motor issues simply from listening to it. According to the Medscape article
Music Listening Enhances Cognitive Recovery and Mood After Middle Cerebral Artery Stroke,
Interestingly, multimodal stimulation, including auditory, visual and olfactory stimuli, combined to the enriched motor environment enhanced motor and cognitive recovery more than the enriched motor environment alone (Maegele et al., 2005).
They used a variety of stimuli beyond music (and good for them), but I wouldn't have expected that result. Another study has shown that
Music Improves Motor and Nonmotor Symptoms in Parkinson's. These benefits were gained while the patients were sitting in reclining chairs.
Often, the music that lifts mood and energizes the body the most is from periods in our lives we look on as having been at our best, which is why "golden oldies" radio and television always have an audience. (Of course, what's "golden" and positive from past or present is unique to the individual).
Neurologist Oliver Sacks, author of Awakenings, provides commentary for the video that inspired this article: Music Therapy Brings Dementia Patients 'Back to Life'. The video (linked to in the article) is a rough cut taken from the documentary Alive Inside about a therapy program called Music and Memory. In it, a nursing home resident named Henry is shown becoming much more responsive and oriented when he listens to some of his favorite music. It's pretty cool.
We started with a brief exploration of how music is used as a therapeutic tool and we've looked at some examples of its power and versatility. The abstract for The Dance of Wellbeing: Defining the Musical Therapeutic Effect addresses the intangible and verbally inexpressible in a way that I find very compelling. To pull out just a single sentence:
Music evokes narratives of experience, based on our innate ability to share the passing of expressive ‘mind time’, an ability that may be called ‘musicality’. which is inseparable from the impulse to move with anticipation of rhythmic sensory consequences and varied emotional evaluations. —Colwyn Trevarthen & Stephen N. Malloch (2000 & July 2009)
Since a diary about music that contains no music just wouldn't do, I've selected a video that I feel provides a demonstration of what the authors at the preceding link were getting at. Be aware of each of the musicians. I guarantee they're all aware of each other, even if it seems they're just staring out into space.
Nothing's gonna take that away
'Cause however you play
Inside
It will find you
-The People's String Foundation
Songs from the Shed is a recording/archiving project that's extremely effective at providing the experience of sitting in on jam sessions with a variety of musicians. But the very aspects that allow this (minimal takes, sub-optimal acoustics, that sort of thing) may also create the mistaken impression that the musicians aren't all that professional. So in fairness to The People's String Foundation, this is what they sound like when they have access to a studio.
MEDSCAPE is a mostly-plain-English news & research report service geared for healthcare professionals but FREE to all who register - click "Consumer" on the PROFESSIONS list in the registration process when first using a Medscape link.
Selecting multiple topics of interest for email notification may flood your inbox, because a tremendous number of medical journals contribute articles from all over the world to Medscape, so it's a good idea to start with few or none, and see how it goes. Many Medscape articles are commentable - if you use a pen-name for privacy, it's worth devising one that won't undermine your impact.
Where articles start with videos of speakers, there's always a transcript below the vid window (and you can shut sound off, of course, if you'd rather read than listen). Some articles are slideshows with explanatory text.
Keep in mind that the competitive nature of publishing can skew writing to suggest certainties not fully supported by findings, and there are always the basics to watch out for, such as, "Many Studies Have 'Elementary Statistical Errors'". Medical science, like every realm of human endeavor, is a work in progress. Read critically for best results.