Music! rhythm of Mind

 Music has been used in medicine for thousands of years. Ancient Greek philosophers believed that music could heal both the body and the soul. Native Americans have used singing and chanting as part of their healing rituals for millennia. The more formal approach to music therapy began in World War II, when U.S. Veterans Administration hospitals began to use music to help treat soldiers suffering from shell shock. In 1944, Michigan State University established the first music therapy degree program in the world.
In 1956, Fran Herman, one of Canada's music therapy pioneers, began a 'remedial music' program at the Home For Incurable Children, now known as the Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, in Toronto. Her group 'The Wheelchair Players' continued until 1964, and is considered to be the first music therapy group project in Canada. Its production "The Emperor's Nightingale" was the subject of a documentary film. Music therapy is the use of music by health care professionals to promote healing and enhance quality of life for their patients. Music therapy may be used to encourage emotional expression, promote social interaction, relieve symptoms, and for other purposes. Music therapists may use active or passive methods with patients, depending on the individual patient’s needs and abilities.

There are several concepts of thought regarding the foundations of music therapy, including philosophies based on education, psychology, neuroscience, and music therapy itself. Different approaches from education are Orff-Schulwerk (Orff), Dalcroze Eurhythmics, and Kodaly. The two philosophies that developed directly out of music therapy are Nordoff-Robbins and the Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music.

Therapists may work with individuals who have behavioral-emotional disorders. To meet the needs of this population, music therapists have taken current psychological theories and used them as a basis for different types of music therapy. Different models include behavioral therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy,and psychodynamic therapy. The therapy model based on neuroscience is called "neurological music therapy" (NMT). Neurological music therapy is "based on a neuroscience model of music perception and production, and the influence of music on functional changes in non-musical brain and behavior functions." In other words, NMT studies how the brain is without music, how the brain is with music, measures the differences, and uses these differences to cause changes in the brain through music that will eventually affect the client non-musically. As one researcher, Dr. Thaut, said: "The brain that engages in music is changed by engaging in music." Research by Nayak et al. showed that music therapy is associated with a decrease in depression, improved mood, and a reduction in state anxiety. Both descriptive and experimental studies have documented effects of music on quality of life, involvement with the environment, expression of feelings, awareness and responsiveness, positive associations, and socialization. Additionally, Nayak et al. found that music therapy had a positive effect on social and behavioral outcomes and showed some encouraging trends with respect to mood. Current research shows that when music therapy is used in conjunction with traditional therapy, it improves rates of recovery and emotional and social deficits resulting from stroke. A study by Jeong & Kim examined the impact of music therapy when combined with traditional stroke therapy in a community-based rehabilitation program. Music has proven useful in the recovery of motor skills. Rhythmical auditory stimulation in a musical context in combination with traditional gait therapy improved the ability of stroke patients to walk. The study consisted of two treatment conditions, one which received traditional gait therapy and another which received the gait therapy in combination with the rhythmical auditory stimulation. During the rhythmical auditory stimulation,stimulation was played back measure by measure, and was initiated by the patient's heel-strikes. Each condition received fifteen sessions of therapy.The results revealed that the rhythmical auditory stimulation group showed more improvement in stride length, symmetry deviation, walking speed and rollover path length  than the group that received traditional therapy alone.

According to a 2009 Cochrane review of 23 clinical trials, it was found that some music may reduce heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure in patients with coronary heart disease. Benefits included a decrease in blood pressure, heart rate, and levels of anxiety in heart patients. However, the effect was not consistent across studies.According to Joke Bradt, PhD, and Cheryl Dileo, PhD, both of Temple University in Philadelphia. Research suggests that listening to Mozart's piano sonata K448 can reduce the number of seizures in people with epilepsy. This has been called the "Mozart effect." However, in recent times, the validity of the "Mozart Effect" and the studies undergone to reach this theory have been doubted, due to reasons such as the limitations in the original study and the difficulty in proving the effect of Mozart's music in subsequent studies. In 2002, the World Congress of Music Therapy was held in Oxford, on the theme of Dialogue and Debate. In November 2006, Dr. Michael J. Crawford and his colleagues again found that music therapy helped the outcomes of schizophrenic patients. In 2009, he and his team were researching the usefulness of improvisational music in helping patients with agitation and also those with dementia.