(MENAFN- The Peninsula) By Fazeena Saleem | The Peninsula
DOHA: It is generally known that music can make someone feel better but only a few would know the wonders music can do including mind training and pain relief.
The Peninsula spoke to an expert at the Qatar Foundation (QF) about how a daily dose of music can improve health conditions. 'When Mozart composed his Sonata for Two Pianos in D major in 1781, he wouldn't have known that the composition would one day be used by researchers to study the effect of music on seizures in patients, said Dr Aicha Hind Rifai, Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine - Qatar (WCM-Q), a QF partner university.
Dr Rifai who has been studying the effects of creative activities such as reading, visual arts, and music on mental well-being, pointed out how music can help in controlling seizures. Multiple studies conducted among children with epilepsy have demonstrated that patients who regularly listened to Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D more commonly referred to as K. 448 for a fixed amount of time each day, showed a reduction in seizures compared with their baseline readings.
Dr Rifai, who is also an Attending Physician at QF member Sidra Medicine and a Consultant at Hamad Medical Corporation, observed that the positive effect of Mozart's K.448 in controlling seizures highlights the significance of music to our mental and physical well-being.
In psychological and educational studies among children and young college students, Mozart's compositions have also been associated with improvement in the basic brain functions involved in reasoning, mathematics, and visual and verbal skills. Additionally, studies have documented an overall positive effect of music in reducing anxiety in children and adults in a variety of settings.
'The benefits of music are not just neurological, educational, or psychological; clear evidence of the positive effects of music on physical health are increasingly being documented all over the world, said Dr Rifai.
She said that music therapy is often used to reteach or retrain motor skills in patients who have lost gross motor functioning for various reasons. She cited the case of a woman who had a gunshot wound to the head who was taught to speak again through singing. Another well-documented example is the use of music in neonatal intensive care units (NICU).
Similarly, elderly patients with neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease are found to benefit from music and singing. 'These patients lose their ability to control their swallowing over time, leading to further complications such as aspiration while eating, as food enters the airway causing the person to cough or choke, said Dr Rifai.
'It is amazing how music therapy has these very specific effects on motor activity. And that's why therapists all over the world involved in patient rehabilitation are beginning to use music to enhance, and even accelerate patient progress, she added.
Pain management is another area of medical care where the benefits of music are being felt. Research conducted in both intensive care units and palliative care settings across the world have revealed results, which, according to Dr Rifai, are nothing short of remarkable.
'There was a significant decrease in the amount of pain medication required by patients in critical care units when they listened to music of their own choice, said Dr Rifai. 'Similar results were observed in palliative care settings too.
'What is even more interesting is that the amount of time these patients listened to music was controlled; though they listened to music only for about an hour each in the mornings and in the evenings the decrease in the requests for pain medication persisted throughout the day. So it is a bit like giving regular doses of music, instead of medicines, to help manage pain.
MENAFN1211201800630000ID1097687666
Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.