Singing – The New Stroke Therapy

According to doctors of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, singing could just be the therapy that could help stroke patients communicate again.
We have long known the various benefits of music, including its stress relieving properties; now it would seem that music may provide stroke patients with a chance to start to communicate once again.
The patients who have full or partial speech impairment were made to form associations with melodies and certain words and phrases. Doctors at the hospital are of the view that music can be used to treat neurological disorders. It is an activity that is able to engage and activate several different regions of the brain. People experience music as a joyous activity.
In this unique new therapy, by having patients form associations between words and musical melodies, communication is enabled. Those who cannot speak, are able to express themselves through music.
Out of an estimated 750,000 and 800,000 cases of stoke per year in the United states, as many as 20,000 individuals suffer speech impairment or aphasia. So if this new therapy catches on, it has the potential to actually benefit a very large number of people.