Music's Effect on Post-Stroke Recovery

Strokes are common among the elderly, and often lead to decreased abilities and increased need for care. Recovery from these unfortunate events are often difficult, disheartening, and lengthy, and often result in unpleasant side effects or no recovery at all. Common side effects of strokes among elderly patients include: loss of verbal memory, decreased attention span, depression, and sometimes death. Since strokes have increased in occurrence, researchers have devoted great time to discovering new ways of bringing normalcy to life after suffering a stroke.

According to researchers and documented in an article entitled, "Music Listening Enhances Cognitive Recovery and Mood After Middle Cerebral Artery Stroke," patients exposed to music after encountering a stroke improved exponentially greater than those that were not exposed to music. Positive results of stroke patients in Finland that listened to music for a couple of hours each day included significant verbal memory and attention span improvement.

The study indicates other forms of audio therapy such as oral stories, however these therapies proved to be far less effective than the use of music to stimulate stroke patients' recovery. Thus far, there has proved to be no benefit to one genre of music over another in the recovery process. Therefore, a patient's desires can be met and customized for each individual case. A daily dose of one's favorite pop melodies, classical music or jazz can speed recovery from debilitating strokes.

As I mentioned in my last post about music's ability to heal chronic physical pain, depression coincides in both scenarios. Therefore, it is undeniable that music has a positive effect on the health of elders, both before and after experiencing a stroke.