Music Therapy Benefits
The following information comes from books and from an extensive search of journal literature.
A bibliography is available in the online version of this exhibit. Information also came from the
website for the Second International Sound Healing Conference, held in November, 2007, in
Santa Fe, New Mexico. http://www.bizspirit.com/soundhealing/so_index.html
Why do music and music therapy benefit
people?
Through the technology of positron-
emission-tomography (PET) scans, it is
possible to watch which areas of brains
light up when people are listening to music.
The following has been discovered:
? Music involves multiple areas of the
brain, thereby "exercising" the brain.
? Areas governing memory such as
the amygdala and the hippocampus
are involved.
Who can benefit from music therapy?
Almost all people can benefit from music
therapy.
Following are specific areas where
music and/or music therapy have been
found to benefit.
Intelligence and brain development:
? Speeds up development of auditory
cortexes of children receiving
musical training by three to four
years, compared with children
receiving no musical training
? Increases intelligence and brain
plasticity (particularly performing
music), the latter helpful in cases of
stroke, and injuries either congenital
or acquired later in life
? Increases short-term memory
retention on intelligence tests
(passive listening to music)
? Enhances healing from wounds and
trauma in performing musicians
? Enhances exercise experience
through increasing heart rate and
oxygen consumption
? Improves muscular coordination
through musical rhythms
Soft, slow, soothing music:
? Slows heart rate
? Reduces blood pressure
? Reduces oxygen consumption
? Reduces heart stroke volume
? Reduces pain levels
Benefits for surgery:
? Reduces anxiety prior to surgery
(especially important with preverbal
childen (2 or 3 years old) who may
not understand the necessity for
surgery and painful procedures)
? Reduces the need for anesthesia
during surgery
? Reduces the need for post-surgical
pain medications
? Improves the ambience in the post-
surgery recovery room
? Helps surgeons, nurses and other
operating room personnel in
smoothly performing surgeries
Benefits for the following surgical
procedures:
? Applying or removing casts for
broken bones and sprains
? Cataract surgery
? Gastrointestinal surgery
? Gallbladder surgery and/or
ultrasound to dissolve gallstones
? Knee arthroplasty
? Prostate surgery
? Hysterectomy and other gynecologic
surgeries
? Heart surgery, including bypass
surgery
Helpful with other procedures:
? Lithotripsy (ultrasound to dissolve
kidney stones)
? Dental procedures, and ultrasound to
dissolve dental plaque
? Angiography
? Sigmoidoscopy or gastrointestinal
endoscopy
? Bronchoscopy
? Mammography
? Autologous stem cell transplantation
? Ventilation support
? COPD patients
? Procedures such as debridement for
burn patients
? Other invasive and/or painful
procedures
Music is helpful in intensive care units,
although patients typically remember
little of times in ICUs.
Premature infants:
? Increases sucking behaviors,
feeding, and weight gain (music with
fast tempos)
? Improves oxygen saturation
? Reduces pain during procedures
such as heel lancing
? Reduces pain in baby boys
undergoing circumcision (perhaps
special "Bris music" can be
developed)
Mental health problems:
? Reduces depression
? Improves schizophrenic patients''
understanding of speech, including
picking up implicit content such as
sarcasm
? Improves social interactions with
others through enhancing of patients''
understanding of people''s intentions
and emotional states
? Helps regularize mood in bipolar
patients
Children with developmental disabilities:
? Improves communication skills of
autistic children or those with
Asperger''s syndrome learn
communication skills, through
programs such as "Songs for
Transitions", and through instructors
singing to them and their singing
back, eventually translating into
speech (see the "Hello Song"
elsewhere in the exhibit)
? Improves social interactions with
others
? Decreases self-mutilation
? Enhances focus and social
interaction of ADHD (Attention Deficit
with Hyperactivity Disorder) children
? Helps children with dyslexia (and
normal children) learn to read more
easily
Stuttering:
? Transforms highly arrhythmic speech
patterns through use of musical
rhythms
Cancer patients
? Helps them to deal with pain
? Helps them to accept life changes
? Reduces physical and psychic pain
from tests, radiation therapy, and
chemotherapy, as well as mitigating
other sequelae such as nausea
Grieving and dying:
? Helps people to deal with loss of
loved ones
? Helps dying people to deal with
impending death
Alzheimer''s disease and dementias:
? Improves appetite and consequently,
increases energy
? Increases melatonin levels in
Alzheimer''s patients
? Reduces agitated behaviors and
"wandering"
? Improves social interactions
Movement disorders:
? Helps Parkinson''s patients to initiate
movement by unlocking the parts of
the brain involving intention to move
? Rhythm patterns helpful to
Parkinson''s patients, cerebral palsy
patients, and other patients, in
regularizing movements
? Increases respiratory muscle
strength in multiple sclerosis patients
Traumatic brain injury, stroke, amnesia,
epilepsy:
? Unlocks access to functions in
damaged brain areas
? Increases plasticity and development
of alternative pathways
? Decreases epileptiform activity
(Mozart''s Piano Concerto in D Major
(K.440) mentioned specifically)
Musicians and singers:
? Helps with focal dystonia problems
such as carpal tunnel syndrome, loss
of embouchure in horn players,
"fiddler''s elbow", etc. (Overuse of
muscle groups in prescribed music
therapies must be avoided.)
? Helps with vocal problems
? Benefits singers due to the deep
breathing required to sustain tones,
? Improves respiratory function and
expiratory volume
? Releases endorphins
? Improves overall mood (for choral
singers, the camaraderie with fellow
singers is also helpful)
? Reduces plasma cortisol; reduces
stress and anxiety
? Increases natural killer cell activity,
Other areas of benefit:
? Improves sleep (soothing music)
? Helps to wake up and face the day
(cheerful, upbeat, fast tempo music)
? Helps psoriasis patients and those
with other skin problems
? Enhances acupressure point
stimulation
? Enhances productivity
? Improves consciousness raising
? Helps balance chakras
? Enhances shamanistic rituals
? Helps to induce trance states
? Synchronizes activity in brain
hemispheres
Sounds too good to be true? A few
caveats:
? Decreased response (paradoxically)
from trained musicians, who tend to
analyze the music rather than
allowing therapeutic aspects to work
? Difference in response between men
and women (women in pain benefit
more from music; men tend to prefer
hard-driving music with fast tempos;
women tend to prefer soothing music
with slow tempos)
? Negative response from people with
amusia, a.k.a. tone-deaf people, to
whom music sounds like kitchen pots
and pans clattering (percussion
therapy might work with them)
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