Music Therapy >>

For help in overcoming such symptoms as short term memory loss and impaired decision making skills, music is being considered as a therapy for those with head injuries. Some therapists are introducing neurological music therapy to their patients because studies indicate that music can promote new neural connections.

Music assists with speech and language skills, physical functioning and social interaction. Because music is a whole brain function, it can affect emotional well-being and assist with motor skills such as learning to walk again or in using fine motor skill development to manipulate small objects. Music offers an opportunity for those suffering from brain injuries or strokes to relate to others. It can increase confidence and self-esteem as well as help to rebuild self-identity.

Therapy includes listening to familiar music, relating to the rhythm and tempo, singing songs or playing an instrument such as the drums. Music therapy is used in a clinical setting by a qualified therapist to stimulate brain functions, encourage social interaction, emotional and cognitive requirements and rehabilitate speech and language disorders.

Music therapy is believed by many to improve the quality of life and to be beneficial for those with head injuries and strokes. Studies indicate that thythmic auditory stimulation will help with movement, musical improvision is good for emotional expression and singing can assist with speech. Listening to music is believed to be a benefit in controlling pain and in improving processing more quickly. It is also believed that music therapy will help prevent depression as well which is often a serious symptom of traumatic brain injury.

In many of these therapy sessions brain injury patients each have a drum and match rhythms and tempo set by the instructor. Studies of music therapy have indicated that there are improvements that when used have also been instrumental in reliving frustrations for those sufferers who have exhibited displays of violence as one of the symptoms following a head injury.

Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who suffered a brain injury from a sniper’s bullet, was given music therapy. This therapy has been credited with her ability to speak again by training her brain to use a less traveled pathway. The ability of the brain to be able to do this is call neuroplasticity. It is believed that few other things activate the brain as extensively as does music.