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Mysterious but healing power of singing Theresa Tighe ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH Sun, Aug. 27, 1995 Helen Fruth can't recall her grandson's name. But she can croon every word of "My Blue Heaven," the song she and her late husband called theirs. When Fruth sings, her anxiety and confusion from Alzheimer's disease subside. For almost three years, after his Parkinson's disease should have put him in a wheelchair, JosephPearl steadied himself by singing the march from "The Bridge on the River Kwai" and was able to walk. Since his Army days in World War II, he had associated the march with determination. Sometimes, familiar music can set people who no longer know their names to remembering, peoplewho no longer talk to singing and people who no longer walk to dancing. Music therapists use this phenomenon to make life better for stroke, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease patients. "People with memory problems generally will respond to a song that was very, very familiar to themor had some personal significance," says Connie Tomaino, director of music therapy at the BethAbraham Hospital in New York City. For some, that response is a smile, a tear or a few minutes of calm. When an accident, injury orillness turns someone into a screamer, a pacer or a stone, such moments are precious. Fruth's daughter, Lois Gale, cuts the pain of nursing home visits by attending the home's sing-alongs. As mother and daughter chime in on "My Blue Heaven," they sing their family's special lyrics, "Helen and me and Lois make three." "I get goose bumps, and Mother just beams," says Gale. Such feelings reflect the power of music, says Tomaino. A song travels down the auditory nerve into the limbic system, the part of the brain that involveslong-term memories and the feelings associated with those memories, says Tomaino. In the nursing home where Helen Fruth, 84, lives, aides sometimes turn a potential battle overdressing or going to the toilet into a game by singing. "The music is a diversion," says Zoe Dearing, a musical therapist who works at the home. "If you sing something they enjoy, they become comfortable and relaxed, and the task turns from a frustration into fun." Studies show that people respond best to songs from childhood and courting days. Songs must bematched to a person's taste. Folk songs work for some, jazz for others, the big band sound for many. Tomaino cautions that music also has the power to resurrect painful feelings. In one of her first therapy sessions about two decades ago, Tomaino played Wagner's "The Ride ofthe Valkyries" for a group of people with dementia, one of whom loved Wagner. No had one told Tomaino that a Jewish woman in the group had survived a concentration camp. The Nazis played "The Ride of the Valkyries" as they marched Jews into extermination chambers. After a few notes, the Jewish woman began screaming. Then she stopped talking for two days. Scientists have yet to prove exactly how music is therapeutic. Tomaino says that in simple terms,researchers think people never lose all memories or behaviors. Rather, they lose the ability to tapinto them. Janet Williams, a music therapist, warns families to be realistic in their expectations. Above all, themusic should give people some joy.