What is it about?
Playing musical instruments presents stroke patients with hemiparesis with a potentially effective method of rehabilitating hand, arm and finger movements in their home. This article reports on patient responses to a music based intervention delivered by a music therapist. Patients synchronized their movements to facilitating music played live by the therapist. Adherence, tolerance and motivation were all consistently good, indicating that a larger, pilot study would be feasible provided that recruitment is better facilitated.
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Why is it important?
Music therapy is not part of standard care for people with stroke and this is the first biomedical music therapy randomized controlled trial to be conducted in the UK.
Perspectives
Patients engaged consistently well with the treatment protocol, linking each movement and movement sequence with activities of daily living. The musical patterns to which patients synchronized their target movements facilitated a high degree of repetition without fatigue, and they appeared to particularly enjoy the musical interactions created. Visiting each patient in their home was a great experience, everyone was so motivated regardless of whether they even liked music particularly. Overall results from this feasibility study indicate that a larger pilot should proceed in order to examine treatment effects.
Alexander Street
Anglia Ruskin University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Home-based neurologic music therapy for arm hemiparesis following stroke: results from a pilot, feasibility randomized controlled trial, Clinical Rehabilitation, June 2017, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0269215517717060.
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