Current Event: 02-19-08

Music speeds recovery from stroke

A recent study says listening to one's favorite melodies can speed a recovery from a stroke. When stroke patients in Finland listened to music for a couple of hours each day, verbal memory and attention span improved significantly opposed to patients who received no musical stimulation, or who only listened to stories read aloud, the study reported. Those who listened to music also experienced less depression than the ones who didn't.
Interestingly three months after a stroke, verbal memory was boosted by 60 percent in music listeners, 18 in audio book listeners, and 29 by non-listeners.

This is the first time music alone has been shown to have a positive effect on victims of brain injury, in this case stroke. Sarkamo speculates that this is because music stimulates a part of the brain in feelings of pleasure and reward that is stimulated by the release of dopamine. Previous research shows that increased dopamine enhances alertness, speed of information processing, attention, and memory in healthy humans. He also stated that music listening might not work for every patient.

This is significant because stroke patients don't always recover and finding new ways and techniques for them to do so, is a major plus factor especially for the families going through that hard time.

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