The Rhythm of Rehabilitation

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“Music is not the icing on the cake, music is the cake,” said Michael Thaut, one of the leading experts in the field, who holds dual positions as a professor of music and neuroscience at Colorado State University and heads its center for Biomedical Research in Music.

Teresa Lesiuk, Assistant Professor of Music Therapy,   Frost School of Music, University of Miami

Since the 1970s, music therapy has been considered “nice to have, but not terribly necessary,” in the rehabilitation of patients with stroke, Parkinson’s and traumatic brain injury, Taut explained in a panel session titled “Neurologic Music Therapy: A Bridge Between Art and Science in Global Health Care,” during the University of Miami Global Business Forum, held Jan. 12–14, 2011. But research conducted over the past 15 to 20 years “points clearly to the fact that music can speed up and optimize recovery in patients, which is a critical factor in the business of health care and in patient care,” he said.

This particular therapy, known as neurologic music therapy, uses 20 exercises that target key aspects of brain function, including information processing, moving, thinking and speech. It also helps rebuild the brain’s important “executive functioning” center, which oversees reasoning and planning.

The therapy works because the brain processes music not as a form of artistic expression but as a language. By tapping into this capability, it helps reeducate and retrain those with brain injuries. As evidence that music is indeed a language, Thaut cited research showing that newborns respond to music much as they do to language. He also noted that children naturally make music when they are very young and that musical instruments have always been part of civilization. “It’s hard to dig music out of the ground, but we have found musical instruments dating back 35,000 years,” he said.

Data from the 130 scientific papers Thaut has published show how areas of the brain light up when people hear music. He presented videos during the session of several patients whose neurological conditions improved upon being treated with neurologic music therapy. Among them was a man afflicted with ataxia, a coordination problem that makes it difficult to walk. When the man walked to the beat of a metronome, he straightened up instantly and his gait improved.

According to Thaut, the type of music used makes no difference; it is the exercises that matter. “The question of which is better, Bach or Mozart or Stevie Wonder, takes music back into realm of traditional music therapy,” he said. 

Teresa Lesiuk, an assistant professor of music therapy at UM’s Frost School of Music, is hopeful that neurologic music therapy will hold the key to breaking the cycle of relapse in drug and alcohol addiction.

Lesiuk delved into the area because research showed that addiction is a disease and that continued substance abuse can damage the “executive center” of the brain, much in the same way that a stroke or traumatic brain injury does. This leaves addicts unable to reason or plan, and they tend to relapse.

“During addiction, there is a loss of signaling between structures in the brain, and what happens is that eventually the ability to reason is lost. Such decision making existed in these individuals before drug addiction, and it has been demonstrated that the use of music stimuli can help,” Lesiuk explained.

Preventing relapse in addicts is of critical importance because 70 percent do so within one year following treatment, and the majority of those within the first three months. However, there are currently no studies that directly address whether music therapy does indeed affect addiction relapse.

While music clearly has important uses in treating neurological issues, Thaut did debunk one popular notion: that playing music to babies, or indeed to anyone, can improve mathematical prowess. “Listening to music doesn’t make you smarter for something else. Listening to music just makes you smarter,” he said.

Quest Diagnostics sponsored the session, which was presented jointly by the Frost School of Music and the College of Arts and Sciences.

By Charlotte Libov