Music therapy in rehabilitation

Abstract

Music now plays an increasing role in several disparate areas. Music therapy appears to affect physiological phenomen such as blood pressure, heart beat, respiration, and mydriasis as well as emotional aspects such as mood and feelings. It is used in the rehabilitation of patients with dementia, Parkinson’s disease, fibromyalgia, stroke, aphasia and visual rehabilitation. Music in the patient with dementia produced significantly higher levels of interest and pleasure than the baseline condition. In accordance with the clinical literature, it may be argued that the Music Therapy-induced improvement in bradykinesia could be due to the effect of external rhythmic cues, which, acting as a timekeeper, may stabilize the internal rhythm formation process in patients with Parkinson’s disease. In fibromyalgia was to investigate the effects of sleep and touch therapy accompanied by music and aromatherapy on the symptoms of fibromyalgia and depression. In stroke rehabilitation, elements of music have previously been used as a part of physiotherapy and speech therapy to enhance the recovery of motor and speech functions. One of the few accepted treatments for severe, nonfluent aphasia is Melodic Intonation Therapy (MIT), a treatment that uses the musical elements of speech (melody & rhythm) to improve expressive language by capitalizing on preserved function (singing) and engaging language-capable regions in the undamaged right hemisphere. Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos was used to visual rehabilitation. The following paper is based on information obtained from the literature review on the use of music therapy in rehabilitation. Conclusion: The use of music therapy in the rehabilitation is huge, but little appreciated. Music therapy is a method of cost-effective, non-invasive where it no reported its side effects. There are small number of studies and publications on the use of music as a form of rehabilitation.