The implications of findings like these are not immediately clear. Many
other brain functions, especially those involving memory, are disrupted in
Alzheimer’s patients, so it may seem that a bit of functional music memory
means nothing. Some researchers, however, think that they can use music
to treat Alzheimer’s and many other diseases and disorders, including
substance abuse problems, brain injuries, and chronic pain. Although it has
been practiced in various forms for centuries, music therapy has been
gaining in popularity and scientific legitimacy just over the last few decades.
“[Music therapy] seeks to address the emotions, cognitive powers, thoughts,
and memories, the surviving “self” of the patient, to stimulate these and
bring them to the fore,” wrote Oliver Sacks, a neurologist, in his new book
about music and the brain, Musicophilia. “It aims to enrich and enlarge
existence, to give freedom, stability, organization, and focus.”
tests that have been used in studies with brain-damaged patients require a
patient to have some memory and other cognitive skills to even understand
the test. Patients with severe Alzheimer’s are unable to comprehend or
remember what they are doing, so these tests are not very useful for
studying Alzheimer’s. Additionally, the progressive nature of the disease
makes it tricky to find research subjects who are at the same stage of the
disease and will still be at comparable stages when the study ends.
Music has been used as a way to heal the sick since ancient times;
even writings by Aristotle and Plato mention the healing powers of music. In
the United States, music therapy became an organized profession during
World War I. Musicians occasionally performed for injured soldiers at
Veterans’ Administration hospitals, and the hospitals began hiring full-time
musicians once doctors and nurses saw the positive emotional and physical
effects the music had on patients. The first music therapy degree program
was founded at Michigan State University in 1940 with a curriculum that
included music, psychology, and biology. In 1950, a group of music
therapists who worked with veterans as well as patients with various mental
illnesses formed the National Association for Music Therapy, which later
joined with another similar group to become the American Music Therapy
Association (AMTA) in 1998.
“It still amazes me what memories a song can evoke from a person,”
said Leecock, who keeps a journal of anecdotes about her many patients as
well as quotes from the families. Many family members notice positive
effects on the patient’s mood after a music therapy session.
Findings from one recent study show that music therapy may at least
improve verbal skills in Alzheimer’s patients. Dr. Melissa Brotons and Dr.
Susan Koger, researchers at Willamette University, found that conversational
fluency significantly increased after three months of twice-weekly music
therapy sessions, at least during and immediately after the sessions.
“Several investigators have described positive effects from music therapy on
demented patients' verbalization and reminiscence, recall of song Iyrics and
singing,” wrote Brotons and Koger. “However, it remains controversial
whether these abilities recruit brain "language" centers such as those
affected in aphasia. That is, musical ability may be functionally and
anatomically dissociable from language and recent verbal memory.”