Have you ever had a song that you just can’t get out of your head? Or maybe a song that you can’t resist tapping your foot to? Now imagine hearing that song and that being the only thing you can tap your foot to. Scientists are discovering all new ways to use music to benefit lives and to give people the ability to walk, talk, and do so much more that they thought they would never be able to do. 

Music has been used as a tool for healing for centuries. Both Aristotle and Plato mentioned music for healing in some of their writings. The idea of Music Therapy didn’t come around until the late 1700’s to early 1800’s when two medical students wrote their dissertations on music therapy and its uses in medicine. It wasn’t until the early 1900s that organizations started to come into the scene. A few nationwide organizations tried to come together but were ultimately unsuccessful. The first successful organization was the National Association for Music Therapy and it was founded on June 2, 1950. This organization spearheaded the Music Therapy industry and made it what it is today. (www.musictherapy.org)

So how does music therapy work? One way that it works is pain reduction. As Lorrie Kubicek puts it, “your brain can only perceive 100 percent of any one thing, so if you really focus your brain on music it can by 50 percent decrease the amount of pain you feel.” This would work really well for a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy. They could listen to music they enjoy or even play music and this could distract them from the pain they are going through at the time. Music therapy is also good for calming people. This is good for multiple reasons. When a patient is calm, they are more open to things that a doctor or therapist would want to try, their heart rate becomes more regular and their blood pressure levels out. People are shown to be more responsive to treatment when they are calm and music helps with that. If a patient is listening to music that puts them in a good mood, then they will be positive while they are undergoing treatment. (www.bostonmagazine.com)

Parkinson’s Disease is one of the most common diseases that Music Therapy helps to treat. Parkinson’s affects more than 500,000 people in the United States alone. Parkinson’s causes trembling all over, a decrease in movement speed, and sometimes a complete loss of control over the body (parkinsons-disease.emedtv.com). With music, patients with Parkinson’s disease can start to walk again and move normally. The brain is known to show a positive response to music with a stronger beat. People who can’t walk on their own are compelled to walk again. This is even more powerful if they have a connection with the music and it evokes positive memories with the patient. Patients  also show a positive response to actually playing the music themselves. This promotes muscle growth and control over their limbs. With this control comes a loss of the shaking that comes with Parkinson’s Disease. (health.usnews.com). This shaking often makes it difficult for people with this disease to sleep. A way to combat this is to play soothing music that helps calm them and reduce the amount of shaking. Another side effect of Parkinson’s disease is a loss of the ability to speak. Doctors have patients try to sing with the music they are listening to. Doing this helps patients with breathing and with articulation of their speech. (www.apdaparkinson.org).

Now you might be thinking, “that’s cool and all that this works for people, but why does it work?” According to MRI’s done by Finnish researchers, listening to music doesn’t use just the parts of your brain related to sound, it also uses many other parts of the brain and makes connections across the brain. Luciana Cramer says “they discovered that the processing of musical pulse recruits motor areas in the brain, supporting the idea that music and movement are closely intertwined. Limbic areas of the brain, known to be associated with emotions, were found to be involved in rhythm and tonality processing. Processing of timbre was associated with activations in the so-called default mode network, which is assumed to be associated with mind-wandering and creativity.” This means that just by listening to music you can heal or reawaken parts of the brain that control other things you do. (www.alz.org)

Music is used for patients with Dementia and Alzheimer’s because patients can remember songs from the past or how to play those songs long after they’ve forgotten everything else. Therapists use music to bring the patients some relief from pain but also to bring back lost memories. This approach is very useful because there is no medication that can cure Alzheimer’s but music can bring back things that were thought to be lost forever. These once lost memories bring a sense of comfort to the patients. They remember who they are and aren’t as lost as before. This also increases their communication. Most Alzheimer’s patients wander around aimlessly or just sit and stare off into space but if they remember things then they are more talkative. Patients will have a sense of life given back to them through the music of their memories and for even just a short time will be released from the grip of their memory loss and confusion. (www.alz.org)

Another big issue that music therapy helps with is Autism. Individuals with Autism typically show several of the same characteristics: lack of social skills, difficulty communicating with others or expressing what they want or how they feel, an obsession with routine and consistency, aggressive tendencies, and over-sensitive reactions to things. Music therapists use music to help with all of these areas. Music is an easy way to bridge the gap between two people. Everyone has a certain type of music that they like to listen to and can express how they feel about it to some degree. Therapists use this with autistic patients to help make a connection and try and increase their social abilities. This also helps with expression. Most autistic people are born with musical abilities, so they are able to express themselves with music because it is familiar to them and they can do it with relative ease. When something changes in an autistic person’s routine, it can often cause them to panic or shut down. If they listen to their favorite music then that adds some familiarity to the situation and it can help them calm down and get their emotions under control. The same thing works for aggression. If something is causing an autistic person to become aggressive, a therapist can put on calming music and try and help the patient calm down and learn to control their reactions. (www.musictherapy.org, www.cdc.gov) 

Music therapy isn’t just for people with diseases or disabilities, it’s for your average person as well. Research shows that listening to music you like improves your mood and makes you happier. This is due to your brain producing dopamine which is what causes you to feel good and be happy. It can also have benefits for your daily activities. Classical music or music without any words in it has been proven to increase the amount of information you can retain while you study or work and thus increases your productivity. Music also decreases stress which helps to boost your health as stress is a leading cause of sickness. This has a practical application for driving as well. Stressed drivers are more prone to roadrage and to not pay attention while driving which causes more accidents and potential deaths. So just listening to the radio can help reduce traffic accidents and deaths. If you are a runner, music should be a key aspect of your daily run. Listening to a faster tempo of music is proven to help you increase your pace and to keep it there. Another application that music has is helping with insomnia. Listening to classical music helps to calm the mind and help people to relax before they go to sleep. (www.lifehack.org)

Have you ever gone into surgery and the doctor was listening to music? There’s a logical explanation for that other than the fact that the surgeon enjoys it. In a recent study published in The British Medical Journal says that eighty percent of surgeons and their staff agree that music is beneficial in the operating room. They say it “encourages cooperation, reduces anxiety, and improves efficiency.” The article says that this benefits not only doctors but patients as well. “A 2009 study of 372 patients found that playing relaxing melodies that mimicked the resting heart rate was more effective than standard pharmaceutical interventions in reducing anxiety before patients went under anesthesia. This study and other research suggests that this positive effect may be maintained after surgery, the Wales surgeons note.” (www.huffingtonpost.com). Patients that listen to music they enjoy after their surgery show less anxiety and stress and need less pain medication than patients that don’t listen to music. Music is also a much cheaper alternative to pain tolerance than medication would be.

So why not just use drugs to help treat patients struggling with all of these various things? Well for starters, drugs can’t help with all of the issues that these people struggle with. There’s no drug out there to help a patient with alzheimers or dementia. Music is one of the only things that actually works for treatment when it comes to those patients. Also, what mother would want to keep her child drugged up because he has random outbursts due to his autism? Music seems to be the easier of the two options and it is more enjoyable for a child than taking a pill. Price is another aspect. Pain medications are very expensive whereas a subscription to Spotify or Apple Music is very inexpensive and you can customize a playlist to fit the needs of the patient. 