Let's release the music inside

It's extremely hard to lose someone you love to Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia. But there’s reason to hope for a better life as we age. Music therapists can help people in nursing homes and other care organisations who suffer from a wide range of cognitive and physical challenges to find renewed meaning and connection in their lives, through the gift of personalised music.

The approach is simple, elegant and effective. Care professionals can be trained to set up personalised music playlists, delivered on iPods and other digital devices, for those in their care. These musical favourites tap deep memories not lost to dementia and can bring participants back to life, enabling them to feel like themselves again, to converse, socialise and stay present. These methods are rooted in extensive neuroscience research. The results can be nothing short of miraculous.

Research Paper

Music is very closely linked with language. Some people believe that we may have started to sing before we started to speak. The notion of language, each with it’s own particular rhythm and melody fascinates me. I was fortunate enough to work in two TBI hospitals one in the South of France the other in Texas, USA this pushed me to study and compare rehabilitating speech with two non – fluent aphasia stroke patients. Below is the abstract from the results of the research, and the presentation was first given at The Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability in June 2013 at the International Music Therapy Conference on Neuro-disability.

Neurologic music therapy: rehabilitating speech in brain injured patients from different linguistic populations.

Important differences have been identified in the approach and use of music therapy between English and French patients with non-fluent or expressive aphasia. In a clinical context, methods for music speech stimulation “MUSTIM” (Thaut 2008) and Melodic Intonation Therapy “MIT” (Albert 1973) were applied first with English patients and then these techniques were adapted for a French population. It was found that cultural diversity and the “musicality” of a native language can influence the patient’s capacity to recover their speech and language skills.

These experiences would support the view of Sacks (2007) that “speech itself is not just a succession of words in the proper order, it has inflections, intonations, tempo, rhythm and “melody”…. language and music both depend on phonatory and articulatory mechanisms.... and yet there are major differences (and some overlaps) in the representation of speech and song in the brain”. The overall findings are discussed within this context.

Key words: non-fluent aphasia, brain organisation of music and speech, native language, cultural identity, singing, interactive therapy, rehabilitation

Cultural Exchange Programme

From a cultural point of view, I was delighted to initiate an exchange programme and conference between the University of Montpellier, Sam Houston State University and TIRR Memorial Hermann Hospital.

This included organising a week of music therapy seminars, conferences and workshops with the Music Therapists from TIRR; Amy and Maegan and the professors of SHSU in March 2013 in Montpellier, France.

I applied for funding for the exchange programme and received financial support from the French Consulate in Houston which paid for the professors’ travel expenses from Houston to Montpellier. Other small grants were awarded which contributed to a successful and comfortable week of lectures and presentations, an enriching culture exchange programme.

These conferences based on music therapy for brain injury and neurological disorders served to inform, educate and enlighten not only the French music therapists, but also the French medical professionals and hospitals.