Music Therapy Proving Beneficial in Brain Injury Response

Music has been credited with bringing beauty into the lives of listeners. Therapists at Spectrum Health are also finding that it can also bring hope into the lives of some patients with brain injuries who are struggling to heal.

March is National Brain Injury Awareness Month. Spectrum Health offers a full continuum of care to people with brain injuries – from hospital to inpatient rehab to home care to outpatient rehabilitation.

Through Spectrum Health Continuing Care, a highly skilled and experienced team is available to work individually with patients to help them reach their rehabilitation goals. The rehabilitation team provides encouragement and support to patients’ families so that they become a part of the rehabilitation process.

Several of Spectrum Health’s programs also offer neurologic music therapy after a patient has suffered a traumatic brain injury as a part of the post-acute continuum of care. Neurologic music therapy is used to treat patients with cognitive, sensory and motor disabilities.

A video about the neurologic music therapy program at Spectrum Health is posted at www.spectrumhealth.org/musictherapy.

“We offer music therapy to our patients in addition to physical, occupational and speech therapy,” said Erin Wegener, neurologic music therapist. “Music is a way to work on those functional goals that patients are addressing, but in a way that might access a new avenue to daily life skills. Patients often really respond positively to music.”

Research has shown that neurologic music therapy provides an important way to optimize recovery for patients with cognitive, sensory and motor disabilities. Former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords credits music therapy for helping her after a TBI.

Wegener, who has been providing music therapy at Spectrum Health since 2006, was certified in neurologic music therapy at Western Michigan University (WMU). Edward Roth, an associate professor for the WMU program, confirms that music has proven effective in stimulating the brain.

“There is no such thing as a music portion or section of the brain; it’s really processed by multiple areas, shared areas of neuro-circuitry,” said Roth. “Different aspects of music can stimulate different parts of the brain.”

Spectrum Health is a not-for-profit health system in West Michigan offering a full continuum of care through the Spectrum Health Hospital Group, which is comprised of nine hospitals including Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital, a state of the art children’s hospital that opened in January 2011, and 190 service sites; the Spectrum Health Medical Group and West Michigan Heart, physician groups totaling more than 600 providers; and Priority Health, a health plan with 625,000 members. Spectrum Health is West Michigan’s largest employer with more than 18,000 employees. The organization provided $176.5 million in community benefit during its 2011 fiscal year.