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Music Therapy
March 09
"Is there enough music in
your life?"
Music Therapy can help
your body heal!
CANCER DEMENTIA PARKINSONS APHASIA
Music as therapy eases anxiety. The brain and body synchronize their internal
rhythms to external stimuli. Example: A cancer patient who is suffering from
anxiety will slow her fast heartbeat and rapid breathing with slow, soothing
music.. Even brain waves slow, which also reduces pain sensations.
Music therapy blocks negative sensations. People can't focus on opposing
sensations simultaneously. Listening to or making music can reduce side effects
from chemotherapy and other treatments. It also reduces the dosage of
painkillers required.
Music therapy helps healing. Patients given music therapy following bone
marrow transplants started producing their own white blood cells in 13.5 days vs
15.5 days in a control group. Music therapy also shortened the time spent in
intensive care units by two to three days.
With dementia, people can have improvements of mood, behavior, even cognitive
function for hours or days after they have been listening to music. Music can
have a power beyond anything else to restore dementia sufferers temporarily to
themselves, and to others.
Music may help people with a movement disorder like parkinsonism regain a
fluent motor flow with music if it has a firm rhythmic character. However, there
is no significant carryover effect with the power of music once the music stops.
With aphasics, it is crucial to have songs with lyrics or intoned phrases,
and interaction with a therapist.
As Nietzsche wrote, "We listen to music with our muscles." It is not just
auditory and emotional. We keep time to music, involuntarily, even if we are not
consciously attending to it, and our faces and postures mirror the "narrative"
of the melody, and the thoughts and feelings it provokes. (Nietzsche continued
to improvise at the piano long after he had been rendered mute, demented, and
partially paralyzed by neurosyphilis.)
So, listen up! You’ll feel better!
Amy Zabin, PhD. Music Therapy Center, Greenwich, Connecticut
Oliver Sacks, MD.
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