Combing Music and Motion: How Music is Improving Outcomes in Physical Therapy

As a physical therapy student, I’ve been taught to see connections between thoughts, ideas, and information to put together the puzzle of the patient I’m working with. Now, towards the end of my training, I’ve come to experience the intense connection music has with my patients and their progress in therapy. They enjoy their time with me more and they make more progress when music is incorporated. I’d like to share some of the powerful ways music can impact the patients I work with because I think it is amazing that our favorite songs can reach beyond being a fun little tune we hum to ourselves or dance to. I worked with a young man who suffered a traumatic brain injury and was in a coma for a few weeks. Every day, his loved ones would play his favorite songs in his hospital room, cycling through his playlists and records. After making it through his coma and being discharged, this young man credited his family playing his favorite songs to helping him hang on and making all the progress he had made. He went on to say it gave him something familiar to hang on to in that time of fear and uncertainty. Research has shown that hearing familiar sounds, even in a comatose state, can help boost brain activity which can help promote return to consciousness (1).

One of my favorite groups to work with is my weekly Parkinson’s class. We use music to help boost their mood and give them a rhythm to help time their exercises. People with this condition lose function of a part of their brain called the basal ganglia which is responsible for timing and controlling movements. The basal ganglia has been shown to be connected to the auditory cortex of our brain. Auditory stimuli, especially music, can help strengthen the weekend basal ganglia and cerebellum, which can help patients produce more controlled, properly-timed movements. The beat of a song can help these people time their movements so they know exactly when to take their next step forward. The tempo cues them to take bigger, safer steps and can be used to increase their walking speed to a pace that allows them to safely navigate their community. Using singing and humming to music with these folks can also help improve their performance of tasks such as swallowing, coughing, and breathing (2). Music can help these folks clear obstacles and adapt to different walking surfaces more safely as well. Outside of Parkinson’s and other neurologic conditions, music can still provide therapeutic benefits. The timing provides a continual reference point for each step you take, so having music playing during gait training generates less stride variability, better balance, and a decreased fall risk. Listening to and focusing on the music while doing another task also strengthens the brain’s ability dual-task, which means you can become better at navigating community settings more safely (3). The comfort from familiar music has been shown to also help regulate mood and behavior in folks with dementia and Alzheimer’s. I love seeing how my passions for science and music can combine to help people live better, stronger lives. It is absolutely fascinating that music can be so much more than a melody you hum on your way to work. So next time you see someone singing a tune through their headphones or you listen to music on a walk, I hope you can appreciate just how impactful that song can be; music has the power to help our brains and our bodies beyond what you may initially think. Thanks for letting me nerd out with y’all!

1. Sun, J., & Chen, W. (2015). Music therapy for coma patients: preliminary results. European review for medical and pharmacological sciences, 19(7), 1209–1218.
   

2. García-Casares, N., Martín-Colom, J. E., & García-Arnés, J. A. (2018). Music Therapy in Parkinson's Disease. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 19(12), 1054–1062. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jamda.2018.09.025

3. Trombetti, A., Hars, M., Herrmann, F. R., Kressig, R. W., Ferrari, S., & Rizzoli, R. (2011). Effect of music-based multitask training on gait, balance, and fall risk in elderly people: a randomized controlled trial. Archives of internal medicine, 171(6), 525–533. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinternmed.2010.446