Amanda, Mamma Mia has just released here in Calcutta today.  I hope to be
able to take Prem to it in a couple of days. I am quite sure it will put a
spring in his step too!
Moneesha


2008/9/10 <[log in to unmask]>

> I recently went to see the musical film "Mama Mia", came out humming
> happily
> and strode briskly the half-mile home - only remembered then that I only
> walk
> slowly with a stick & a limp.
> I'd just done non-stop in 10 minutes a walk that had taken me 30 going out,
> with 2 rests.
>
> Go on doctors, explain that ?
> Where'd I get the dopamine?
> Amanda.
>
> Quoting rayilynlee <[log in to unmask]>:
>
> > Hearing the music, healing the brain
> > By Matthew Shulman
> > U.S. News and World Report
> > Article Last Updated: 09/07/2008 02:08:57 PM MDT
> >
> >  Music therapy is helping patients regain abilities lost to Parkinson's,
> > Alzheimer's and strokes.
> > Rande Davis Gedaliah's 2003 diagnosis of Parkinson's disease was followed
> by
> >
> > leg spasms, balance problems, difficulty walking, and ultimately a
> serious
> > fall in the shower. But something remarkable happened when the
> 60-year-old
> > public-speaking coach turned to an oldies station on her shower radio:
> She
> > could move her leg with ease, her balance improved and she couldn't stop
> > dancing. Now, she puts on her iPod and pumps in Springsteen's "Born in
> the
> > U.S.A." when she wants to walk quickly; for a slower pace, Queen's "We
> Are
> > the Champions" does the trick.
> > Music therapy has been practiced for decades as a way to treat
> neurological
> > conditions from Parkinson's to Alzheimer's to anxiety and depression.
> Now,
> > advances in neuroscience and brain imaging are revealing what's actually
> > happening in the brain as patients listen to music or play instruments
> and
> > why the therapy works.
> > "It's been substantiated only in the last year or two that music therapy
> can
> >
> > help restore the loss of expressive language in patients with aphasia"
> > following brain injury from stroke, says Oliver Sacks, the noted
> neurologist
> >
> > and professor at Columbia University, who explored the link between music
> > and the brain in his recent book "Musicophilia." Beyond improving
> movement
> > and speech, he says, music can trigger the release of mood-altering brain
> > chemicals and once-lost memories and emotions.
> > Humans born for the beat
> > Parkinson's and stroke patients benefit, neurologists believe, because
> the
> > human brain is innately attuned to respond to highly rhythmic music; in
> > fact, says Sacks, our nervous system is unique among mammals in its
> > automatic tendency to go into foot-tapping mode. In Parkinson's patients
> > with bradykinesia, or difficulty initiating movement, it's thought that
> the
> > music triggers networks of neurons to translate the cadence into
> organized
> > movement.
> > "We see patients develop something like an auditory timing mechanism,"
> says
> > Concetta Tomaino, cofounder of the Institute for Music and Neurologic
> > Function in New York City. "Someone who is frozen can immediately release
> > and begin walking. Or if they have balance problems, they can coordinate
> > their steps to synchronize with the music," improving their gait and
> stride.
> >
> > Slow rhythms can ease the muscle bursts and jerky motions of Parkinson's
> > patients with involuntary tremors.
> > Actually playing music, which requires coordinating muscle movements and
> > developing an ear for timing, can also bring dramatic results, says Rick
> > Bausman, a musician and the founder and director of the Martha's
> > Vineyard-based Drum Workshop.
> > The workshop uses traditional drum ensembles, in which groups of
> > participants play percussion pieces, as one form of therapy for patients
> > with a variety of cognitive and physical disabilities, including
> Parkinson's
> >
> > disease. Bausman teaches participants to play along with traditional
> > Afro-Caribbean beats like the Haitian kongo and Cuban bembe using congas,
> > bongos and djun-djun drums.
> > "Participants report that their control of physical movement improves
> after
> > playing the drums, their motion becomes more fluid, they don't shake
> quite
> > as much, and their tremors seem to calm down," says Bausman.
> > Indeed, research on the effects of music therapy in Parkinson's patients
> has
> >
> > found motor control to be better in those who participated in group music
> > sessions - improvisation with pianos, drums, cymbals and xylophones -
> than
> > in people who underwent traditional physical therapy. But gains were no
> > longer evident two months after the sessions ended, so the best results
> > require continued therapy. To stay motivated, Tomaino recommends seeking
> out
> >
> > both therapeutic drumming groups like Bausman's and social dance classes.
> > Patients can also create music libraries for CDs or MP3 players that can
> be
> > used to help walking.
> > Because the area of the brain that processes music overlaps with speech
> > networks, neurologists have found that a technique called melodic
> intonation
> >
> > therapy is effective at retraining patients to speak by transferring
> > existing neuronal pathways or creating new ones.
> > "Even after a stroke that damages the left side of the brain - the center
> of
> >
> > speech - some patients can still sing complete lyrics to songs," says
> > Tomaino. With repetition, the therapist can begin removing the music,
> > allowing the patient to speak the song lyrics and eventually substitute
> > regular phrases in their place. "As they try to recall words that have a
> > similar contextual meaning to the lyrics, their word retrieval and speech
> > improves," she says.
> > The technique appears to activate areas on the right side of the brain,
> > suggesting that these areas pick up the slack for the damaged left side,
> > according to Gottfried Schlaug, a Harvard neurologist whose ongoing
> research
> >
> > uses functional MRI scans to study language recovery in stroke patients.
> > "It's startling to see these images," says Sacks; "one would not expect
> to
> > see such plasticity in the human adult brain."
> > Dramatic recoveries
> > Trevor Gibbons, 51, can vouch for the brain's flexibility. A patient at
> Beth
> >
> > Abraham Rehabilitation Center in New York City, where Tomaino heads the
> > music therapy program and where Sacks first began treating chronically
> ill
> > patients decades ago, Gibbons has been able to restore his speech after
> > suffering a devastating spinal injury from a four-story fall and a stroke
> in
> >
> > 2000. The former carpenter says that before he began vocal training and
> > playing piano with music therapists at the clinic, he couldn't speak or
> move
> >
> > and would lie for days in bed, depressed.
> > After intensive sessions three times a week over several years, Gibbons
> not
> > only recovered his speech but also has written more than 400 songs,
> recorded
> >
> > three CDs, and performed at a benefit fundraiser for Beth Abraham at New
> > York's Lincoln Center. (Pre-stroke, says Gibbons, he sang only in his
> church
> >
> > choir.)
> > As Gibbons did, patients often report more positive moods following
> > sessions. This may be because of an increase in the production of
> > neurotransmitters like norepinephrine and melatonin, suggested a 1999
> study
> > by researchers from the University of Miami School of Medicine. Several
> > studies have shown calming music can lower blood pressure rates, and last
> > year Spanish research showed listening to music before surgery decreased
> > anxiety, heart rate and levels of the stress hormone cortisol as much as
> the
> >
> > anti-anxiety drug diazepam.
> > Stress and anxiety relief, in fact, may be one reason music can help
> people
> > with Alzheimer's and dementia uncover memories that seemed irrecoverable,
> > experts say. Researchers reported in 2006 that enhanced memory recall
> > accompanied significant reductions in anxiety when Alzheimer's patients
> > listened to the "Spring Movement" from Vivaldi's "Four Seasons."
> > Set at ease by familiar melodies, they may be more apt to communicate
> too.
> > Even people at advanced stages of the disease sometimes see improvements
> in
> > attention and alertness, sociability and overall functioning after music
> > therapy. The reason, experts suspect, is that music stimulates areas deep
> > within the amygdala and hippocampus, where emotion and long- term memory
> are
> >
> > processed. Both are less prone to the effects of Alzheimer's than the
> outer
> > cortex, the hub for complex thought.
> > Music played at a wedding, a religious service, favorite songs from
> > childhood, or concerts from the teenage years or young adulthood can
> serve
> > as cues to recover memories, says Suzanne Hanser, founder of the music
> > therapy department at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and a
> > practicing therapist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
> > Not everyone will respond, and it may take several sessions to see any
> > effect, says Hanser. She finds that simple stress-reduction techniques
> such
> > as facial massage or muscle-release exercises can often enhance the
> music's
> > magic.
> >
> > Rayilyn Brown
> > Director AZNPF
> > Arizona Chapter National Parkinson Foundation
> > [log in to unmask]
> >
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