The Healing Power of Music
New research reveals its amazing health benefits
Aside from being fun, song and dance therapy can ease certain medical conditions.
Hoping to prevent a similar fate, Stephen joined ParkinSong last year, a local group of Parkinson’s patients who meet monthly with a music therapist. They sing together, choirstyle, and learn skills to help preserve their singing and speaking voices.
“The session involves vocal exercises, breathing exercises, correct posture and that sort of thing,” he says. “Our vocal cords are like any other muscle in your body. If you don’t use it, you lose it.”
Stephen practises the exercises daily and records himself singing to detect differences in his voice. He’s happy with the progress he’s making.
“Before I got involved in this choir, I thought doom and gloom – I love singing, and maybe not being able to do that...So while I can still sing, I’m getting out there and I’m doing it,” Stephen says.
Helping Parkinson’s patients maintain their voices is just one way that music therapy benefits people. A variety of music programmes can i mprove the mental or physical health of people with numerous diseases and conditions. There are no potential side effects, except, perhaps, getting a song stuck in your head.
“You’re going to see more and more studies coming out showing that this is therapeutic and there’s really no downside,” says psychiatry professor Dr Corrine Fischer.
When therapy is needed to relieve pain or maintain or restore function to the body, different options are available. Physical therapy can be effective, but repetitive exercises may be boring. Music can add an element of fun to therapy. “People exercise longer because they enjoy what they do,” says Barcelona-based music therapist Melissa Mercadal-Brotons, president of the World Federation of Music Therapy.
Music is an ideal motivator, because people have deep emotional responses to it on many levels; researchers and music therapists latch onto this to create treatments that can be as effective as, or more effective than, traditional therapies.
“Music’s so multi- dimensional,” says Jeanette Tamplin, a music therapist and research fellow at
Singing has always made Stephen Dunn, 64, of Melbourne, feel joyful. He occasionally sang with bands in the past. When he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease two years ago, he remembered that his father, who’d also had the condition, lost his ability to sing as the disease progressed.
the University of Melbourne who’s involved with ParkinSong. “It can be very functional, like you’re getting people to walk in time to music. Or it can be very psycho-dynamic, like you’re helping them to access emotions and process grief and adjustment through songs.”
Doctors recommend music therapy to treat certain conditions, and researchers are working to expand the reach of treatments.
Here’s how people are benefiting.
PARKINSON’S
The exercises which Stephen Dunn and other ParkinSong participants learn are research- proven techniques which can help them increase their voice’s volume and improve their ability to be understood. “Parkinson’s does affect communication, even from the very early stages,” says Tamplin.
Over a three month period, she and colleagues had 75 people with Parkinson’s participate in weekly or monthly sessions. Participants became louder and improved their respiratory function, compared to non- par t icipants, and those who attended weekly saw greater improvements than monthly participants. The study was published this year in 2020.
“The fact that we saw people actually get louder and more confident in their speech was really exciting for us,” she says.
Parkinson’s patients also experience mobility impairment, and music therapy may help them improve the ability to walk. A 2019 Italian study showed that ten people with Parkinson’s disease who regularly participated in tango dancing experienced improvements to their gait, mobility, balance and quality of life.
“The music may work as a cue to reinforce the attention of the patient while moving,” says study author and neurologist, Dr Giovanni Albani. “And tango dancing harmonises movements between their trunk and limbs, leading to a recovery in certain functions of the brain.”
DEMENTIA
Doctors sometimes suggest music therapy for people with dementia. According to research published last year that analysed six previously
“Before I got involved in the choir, I was all doom and gloom”
STEPHEN DUNN, PARKINSON'S PATIENT
published studies, music helps to improve behaviour and cognition among people with Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia.
“In our memory clinic we often recommend: if you played the piano, play the piano. If you liked music, please listen to music – music that has some emotional resonance. It’ll help your brain,” says study author Dr Fischer.
She has studied the effects of music on brain activity in people with mild cognitive impairment, a precursor to dementia. People listened to music during a functional MRI, which shows those areas of the brain that are activated. When they listened to music with emotional significance – like someone’s wedding song – it activated more areas of the brain than when they listened to music they’d never heard before. “Also, it activated areas that are involved in emotional expression – the subcortical brain areas.”
Other research has found that listening to familiar music helps people with Alzheimer’s to reminisce. A 2013 study involving 24 people showed that when Alzheimer’s patients listened to old popular songs, they were able to recall autobiographical information linked to those tunes.
“Whenever people listen to known melodies, the area that activates is where autobiographical memories occur,” says Mercadal-Brotons.
OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY
After stroke, some people need physical or occupational therapy to recover function to a limb. Music therapy can also help.
Ten months after having a stroke in 2018, Yaismery Leon-Hechavarria, 34, entered a music therapy programme to help her regain function in her right arm by playing musical instruments. Three times a week for ten weeks, she played the piano and percussion instruments – djembe, maracas, rain stick, tambourine and castanets. The therapy sessions strengthened her arm.
“Now I go down the street and nobody sees that I am a stroke patient,” Yaismery says. “I’m currently working on precision – small things like embroidery.”
Patients like her practise gross motor movements by banging drums and fine motor movements by
“Now I go down the street and nobody sees that I am a stroke patient.”
YAISMERY LEON- HECHAVARRIA
pressing piano keys. Many are enthusiastic about music therapy sessions because of the enjoyment factor.
“We believe that is really increasing the motivation,” says research professor Antoni Rodriguez-Fornells, who’s involved with this music therapy research. “You don’t need somebody to push you to do that therapy. You’re going to be trying to do it by yourself.”
This music therapy intervention has been as effective as more traditional therapies which help patients regain arm function, but patients have fun while strengthening their upper bodies.
PAIN RELIEF
Music therapy has been shown to reduce pain caused by a number of different conditions. A 2018 study reviewed 13 previously published studies about the effects of music therapy on pain management and found that music had a significant effect on pain.
“Music decreases intensity of pain, but it does not make the pain disappear,” says study author and music researcher Dr Juan Martin-Saavedra.
Music therapy is intended as complementary to pain medication, not a replacement. “The most common theory is that interventions such as music distract the subject from pain and induce a positive emotional state that helps them cope better with it.”
More research is needed to find out what types of music are most effective for pain relief and which conditions they can soothe. “Different music has different effects on the brain. Therefore, not all music is useful to alleviate pain, and not all pain can be alleviated by music,” he says.
HOPE FOR THE FUTURE
Patients who receive music therapy often feel transformed by the experience. Stephen Dunn has enjoyed ParkinSong so much, he was inspired to learn to read music in order to participate more fully. Singing has become an everyday part of his life that he’s passionate about, and it benefits his health.
“I see it as long-term strategy to keep singing,” Stephen says. “This ParkinSong could help to keep my voice going for as long as I can.”