R&B is Carey Gordon's pick-me-up music. When he's feeling stressed, annoyed or sorry for himself, he turns on the radio or pops in headphones, and the music "just hits that nail right on the head for me."
Gordon can't afford to get stressed or angry; strong emotions might trigger dangerous seizures.
But music is his antidote, as he discovered in 2004, soon after several major surgeries to correct the malformed blood vessels in his brain that had been triggering headaches and seizures. Music also helped him recover some dexterity after damage from the seizures partially paralyzed his right side. He can hold his beloved chef's knife again, though he isn't strong enough to work a full shift in a commercial kitchen anymore. And music gave Gordon back his upbeat attitude.
The smile returned
"It was music that got me into that jolly, fun-loving (mood again). And it helped me to help other people change their mood as well," he says. "I was able to get up in the morning smiling. Music therapy is what did it."
Music therapy is increasingly used to treat a wide range of physical problems, from brain injury to aging to cystic fibrosis.
The most famous recent music therapy patient is U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, who was shot through the left side of her brain 10 months ago. Her therapists have used music to help her learn to walk and speak again, as well as give her an emotional boost along her stunningly difficult path.
Music holds a unique role in human life. Its rhythms help organize movements -- almost no one can resist a good beat. Music brings up memories. And music, it seems, can help retrain the speech centers of the brain.
Using an approach called Melodic Intonation Therapy, therapists can retrain an injured brain like Giffords' to circumvent the damage. Take the word "hello." A therapist might teach a patient to sing the two syllables, first a high note, then a lower one. With practice, the patient could slowly phase out the musical notes, first saying the word in a sing-song fashion and then speaking it directly.
That's pretty much how Giffords spent January to June, in a Houston rehabilitation facility, where she received several hours a day of that and other kinds of music therapy.
Her therapist, Maegan Morrow of the TIRR Memorial Hermann Rehabilitation Hospital, also sang popular songs and left out one word: "Girls just wanna have." Giffords could then produce the word "fun," even when she couldn't speak.
A 'go signal' for the body
This kind of automatic response is usually controlled by the right side of the brain, while speech is usually centered in the left, says Gottfried Schlaug, director of music neuroimaging and stroke recovery at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Melodies also trigger the right side of the brain.
Tapping a finger at the same time turns on the brain's movement centers, which control the tongue and lips, promoting speech, says Schlaug, whose research at Harvard Medical School shows these kinds of activities can rewire the right side of the brain to look like a healthy left.
Music is a "go signal" that can help get limbs moving even when the analytical parts of the brain have trouble sending those messages, says Suzanne Hanser, chair of the music therapy department at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.
"There are so many areas of the brain that are triggered and activated through music," she says. "Just listening to a single phrase can trigger all those things without our thinking of it, willing it or concentrating on music."
Small steps make big difference
There are more than 5,000 music therapists in the USA -- and there should be more, says Concetta Tomaino, executive director of the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function at the Beth Abraham Family of Health Services in New York. Insurance often cuts therapy short, leaving patients to recover mostly on their own, she and others say.
Gordon, a former patient at Beth Abraham, says he's sure that music has helped him in many ways. Though he's still unemployed and doubts he'll ever be able to work in a restaurant again, he can hold his knife again and dance. Last week, he cooked Thanksgiving dinner for 12.
The right combination of therapies over time makes a huge difference, Morrow says. "I used to think if I had a horrible brain injury, I don't want them to keep me alive." But "I've been here for eight years, and I see how people really can come back to life."
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