Clips available till July 7, 2009

Arts in Healthcare Summer Intensive Training

Monday, August 10 To Friday, August 21

Presented by the University at Buffalo Center for the Arts
and the University of Florida Center for the Arts in Healthcare

Begin or deepen your practice in the Arts in Healthcare at the University at Buffalo

The Arts in Healthcare Summer Intensive at the University at Buffalo is designed to provide beginning and experienced arts in healthcare students and professionals with an opportunity to explore the arts in healthcare through applied theory and practice. Participants may enroll in one of two tracks, the Advanced Clinical Practice track or the Introductory Track.

Participants in the Advanced Clinical Practice track will immerse in daily cross-disciplinary clinical practice at two area hospitals and in in-depth explorations of practice supported by current research and theory. The program will provide advanced practitioners with a uniquely enriching opportunity for professional development, inspiration, and renewal, and will deepen and expand individual clinical practice models.

Participants in the Introductory Track will explore the applications of visual arts, writing, music, theatre, and dance in healthcare fields and settings through hands-on studio workshops, clinical observation, review of current literature, and discussion-based exploration of clinical practice with advanced practitioners.

The two tracks come together each day for lectures on relevant arts in healthcare topics, “journal club” explorations of current literature, and for in-depth roundtable discussions of clinical practice based on the current clinical experiences and grounded in theory and current research.

Summer Intensive workshops will be led by Jill Sonke-Henderson from the University of Florida Center for the Arts in Healthcare and Artists in Residence of the Center for the Arts, University at Buffalo Arts in Healthcare Initiative.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD REGISTRATION FORM

For more information:
Katherine Trapanovski
716-645-0891
ktrap@buffalo.edu

Relating to Stress Factors and Chemotherapy Treatment for Cancer http://www.scientificartsfoundation.org/videosciencecafe.html

The Scientific Arts Foundation has posted a new video of their research team presenting pilot study information that led to the development of a medically approved holistic clinical trial exploring the impact of specific music on stress factors in adults receiving chemotherapy treatment for cancer.? http://www.scientificartsfoundation.org/videosciencecafe.html

This video is also on YouTube for those interested in posting comments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRbmM6r0tNE

Please share these links with others so we can continue to increase the awareness of this innovative research and reach those who can offer?financial support.

With Sincere Gratitude,
Amy Camie
Founder, Executive Director
Scientific Arts Foundation
St. Louis, Missouri, USA

As Bill Bundock’s Alzheimer’s progressed he became more and more locked into his
own world.

He withdrew into himself and stopped communicating with his wife, Jean.

Jean said Bill lost his motivation, and his desire and ability to hold
conversations, but all this changed when the couple started attending a local
sing-song group, aimed especially for people with dementia.

Jean said Singing for the Brain had unlocked Bill’s communication block.

Personality change

“The first time we went to Singing for the Brain he did not join in. On the
second session he was starting to join in and by the third he was thoroughly
taking part.

“It was wonderful for us. The singing had started to change something. It really
did make a tremendous difference. He started to come out of himself.

I would take the song sheets home after the sessions and we would sing them
at home
Jean Bundock

“His personality started to change and he became much as he was before, and he
was able to hold a conversation.

“He is 82 and likes all the old-time songs, but he also started singing some
Beatles songs and songs from the Broadway shows and even some modern stuff as
well.

“He seemed to be able to slowly learn things again. I would take the song sheets
home after the sessions and we would sing them at home. It enlivened him and he
really enjoyed doing it.”

Bill, from west Berkshire, has been in hospital recently after having a stroke,
but Jean kept up the singing and said it has given them both a focus, even
helping his slurred speech recover following the stroke.

“I don’t know what it is that changes in the brain when people with Alzheimer’s
sing, but obviously something does change and there is something very beneficial
about it. It seems to kick-start something in the brain and has made such a
difference to Bill.”

Emotional resonance

Chreanne Montgomery-Smith, who founded Singing for the Brain, three years ago,
said the weekly sessions had proved so popular they were hoping to expand the
project and get more weekly groups.

“We do have quite an avid following in the group that we have. Families believe
it has enhanced their lives and in some ways it has kept people well longer.

“People who have constant memory problems are so undermined by this, but somehow
the memory for singing is preserved for ever in the brain and it gives people a
lift when they can remember things”.

We choose things to sing for people that have an emotional resonance
Chreanne Montgomery-Smith

Chreanne started singing with groups when she was working in a residential home
and was so amazed by the positive effect on people with dementia that she
decided to include this when she went to work for the Alzheimer’s Society West
Berkshire branch.

“We choose things to sing for people that have an emotional resonance, things
that allow them to express their emotions such as feeling cross or sad as well
as happy.

Singing tutor Liz McNaughton, a freelance voice coach with Singing for the
Brain, explained the concept had been so popular and successful that she had
been asked to run workshops for people with Parkinson’s Disease, those who had
strokes and head injuries and for people with special needs.

“It would seem, and there is a lot of research about this, that the music has
the ability to access words. It is so powerful that people who have lost their
ability to speak can access songs and words from the melody.”

She said the singing sessions appeared to have positive effects on participants’
cognitive powers, their physical ability and their emotions.

Rhythm ‘beneficial’

Clive Evers, of the Alzheimer’s Society said Singing for the Brain was proving
so popular and beneficial that he hoped more groups would soon be established.

“What Chreanne Montgomery-Smith is tapping into is very important. It is not the
stream of consciousness, but a level of consciousness, a level of awareness
people have with the real world.

“The music allows them to engage. Her project is very important and shows what
can be done.”

Clive Ballard, director of research at the Alzheimer’s Society and Professor of
Age Related Diseases at King’s College, London, said singing as an activity did
seem to help people with dementia.

“People seem to enjoy doing something jointly with other people and there is a
lot of evidence that being socially engaged is good for people with dementia.”

He said the part of the brain that worked with speech was different to the part
that processed music, allowing those who had lost their speech to still enjoy
their music.

Mr Ballard said rhythm had also been shown to be beneficial, particularly for
those with diseases like Parkinson’s where movement was a problem. He said
listening to rhythms, even just a metronome, could help.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/health/4448634.stm

Published: 2005/11/20 00:01:11 GMT

By KURT LOFT | The Tampa Tribune

TAMPA – When Robyn L’Heureux checked into Tampa General Hospital earlier this year to receive a new heart, she knew the road to recovery would be arduous.

After six weeks, she was back in her Tampa home, on the mend from a life-saving transplant. But she has more to thank than her doctors and nurses. Mozart and the Beatles, of all people, played a part in her return to health.

“You get depressed being in a hospital for that long, and music helps put you in another world,” says L’Heureux, who turns 54 today. “You forget the aches and pains, and it raises your spirits.”

L’Heureux didn’t just listen to recordings; musicians came to her room and performed live, everything from classical to jazz to pop to original works. It kept her focused on the positive.

“It just takes you totally out of the hospital to another world,” she says. “One night, I had a five-piece orchestra in my room And it didn’t bother the other patients. In fact, the musicians would draw a crowd. “

L’Heureux is among thousands of patients across the country who participate in hospital arts-in-medicine programs. The point is to use music, among other art forms, to create a peaceful, healing environment for the sick.

“And I have not heard one single, negative comment about it,” says Sheela Chokshi, director of the Integrated Medicine Program at Tampa General. “It promotes the process of getting away from an environment of tension. And it has no side effects.”

Across town at the Moffitt Cancer Center, a similar program brings musicians and patients together. Three certified music practitioners work in the hospital, and often improvise around the patient’s mood.

“I prepare myself for each day by trying to become a blank slate so I can be sensitive to the needs of the patient,” says Lloyd Goldstein, who plays double bass. “It’s not about performing, but matching the patient’s energy and mood and making the connection, using music as the bridge.”

Goldstein, who played with The Florida Orchestra for more than 20 years, tries to convey what he calls “remembered wellness” — ushering the mind into a pleasant state so the body can do what it needs to do to heal. Although music isn’t a cure for ailments, Goldstein says, it helps in the recovery process by pushing aside anxiety.

He sees the results every day at the bedside of his listeners: “It’s unbelievably satisfying. It’s the greatest work I’ve been doing,” he says.

Sometimes called music therapy, the technique is more accurately described as “music as modality.” While not a medically accepted treatment, it certainly is a legitimate way to comfort those in discomfort, says Cheryl Belander, coordinator of Moffitt’s Arts in Medicine Program, now in its 10th year.

“The work we do is part of our palliative care program,” she says. “We bring music to patients, but not for a specific reason. We bring in music as an expressive art, to soothe, comfort, inspire, to create a comfort zone, a safe space where the patient can have their own experience with the music.”

Goldstein’s idea of “remembered wellness” underscores how music can be a tonic, Belander adds.

“If you are ill, and if you hear music that was a part of your life when you were strong and healthy, it’s uplifting,” she says. “It connects you to that time when you were vibrant.”

Live music in a patient’s room can be a positive distraction, experts say, because it helps erase the fears of being in a hospital, the uncertainty of not knowing what happens next. Calming music, Chokski says, helps modify the heart rate and breathing.

“It’s vibrational energy,” she says. “Music vibrations help patients find an alignment in their healing, because a lot of physical illnesses are based on emotional imbalance.”

More and more hospitals are embracing arts-in-medicine programs, and work with arts groups in finding the right musicians. Ruth Eckerd Hall, for instance, refers musicians trained in therapeutic music to the Morton Plant Mease Hospital in Clearwater.

But what musicians play, Goldstein says, is less important than how they adapt their sounds to the patient.

“Everything I play needs to have an element of specialness about it,” he says. “Even if it’s a simple melody, it has to become mine, and be heartfelt. The main thing is to make it easy for the patient so they can make a connection.”

Reporter Kurt Loft can be reached at (813) 259-7570 or kloft@tampatrib.com.

By Mary Ishimoto Morris
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, December 23, 2008; HE01

Cathy Maglaras plays the harp for cancer patient James King at the Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore. A growing number of medical institutions are integrating live music into patient care. (By Mark Gail -- The Washington Post)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/19/AR2008121903041.html

“Beautiful” is the word Cathy Maglaras uses to describe the first time she sat playing her harp to a man as he died. “People always ask, ‘Isn’t that depressing?’ But no,” she explains. “Actually I felt so honored to be there at such an intimate moment.”

Maglaras is a therapeutic musician at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, one of the growing number of medical institutions integrating live music into patient care. She also serves as Baltimore area coordinator for the Music for Healing and Transition Program (MHTP), a national organization that certifies music practitioners to serve the dying and critically or chronically ill.

Not to be confused with music therapy, in which music is used to engage individuals or groups in pursuit of a specific treatment goal, therapeutic music is played live at the bedside of people facing physical, emotional or spiritual challenges, in the hope of creating a healing environment for them.

Maglaras had long been aware of the power of music. She grew up playing piano and violin, earned a music education degree from Towson University and became an orchestra teacher in Baltimore County. Then, five years ago, after reading that the harp possessed particular powers to reach across emotional divides, she rented a Celtic harp for a summer workshop at McDaniel College and discovered a new calling. She signed up for MHTP’s program, which she completed in 2006.

“I used to have major stage fright,” says Maglaras of her life as a performer, “because the focus was on me. What if I make a mistake? But therapeutic music is not a concert. . . . Now I’m focused on the other, what I’m giving. Am I uplifting my audience?”

The stars aligned to bring Maglaras to Mercy. While Maglaras was finishing her qualification requirements, Brenda Hannon of Mercy’s pastoral care staff was in discussions with oncology surgeon Armando Sardi, director of the hospital’s Institute for Cancer Care, who was looking for resources to uplift patients. With support from the Zanvyl and Isabelle Krieger Fund, they were able to invite Maglaras to practice at Mercy.

Maglaras plays twice a week, for patients recommended by the staff or sometimes on request, usually for 20 to 30 minutes each and from a mostly memorized repertoire.

Harps and More

People have used music to comfort the sick since ancient times. According to Carol Joy Loeb, a member of MHTP’s board of directors, the current movement was pioneered 35 years ago, by concert harpist Therese Schroeder-Sheker, who developed a program now based in Oregon to serve the dying in hospitals and hospices. MHTP broadens that mission to help patients who are expected to recover.

A former registered nurse and opera singer, Loeb estimates that 80 percent of therapeutic musicians play the harp. But at an MHTP class at Mercy this year, the instruments being played included guitar, dulcimer, violin, piano, flute and cello. Loeb also knows practitioners who play Native American flute, double bass and French horn, as well as vocalists.

Loeb, who has practiced at Howard County General Hospital, stresses that the “live human touch” is essential and can’t be matched by a CD or tape. “It’s important for us to be able to watch the patient and react musically. We look at how they’re breathing, at their facial muscles to see how relaxed they are, to know if we have to change the key, the rhythm, the melody.”

She believes the music has an immediate impact: “You can see on the cardiac monitor the oxygen level creep its way up to 100 percent,” she says, “because the music is relaxing them so that when they’re breathing they’re oxygenating their tissues better.

Loeb, who has played for comatose patients, says, “Sometimes you’ll see a little facial relaxation or even a smile. Occasionally we’ve had comatose patients start to hum along.”

‘A Wonderful Tone’

“Hi,” Maglaras says brightly to a frail, middle-aged, African American man with several visitors seated around his bed. “This isn’t a performance, so you don’t have to stay awake or clap. Please tell me to stop if you want me to stop.” He nods, appearing uncertain.

After that brief introduction, Maglaras sets her harp a few feet from bedside, sits on a stool, places her hands on the strings and begins plucking a medieval-sounding melody. A visitor turns off the TV, and the patient leans back and closes his eyes as the music fills the room. He opens his eyes and gazes out the window. His eyelids droop, then close. His chin lowers gently onto his chest, his breathing growing deep and regular. His visitors also appear to have relaxed.

Time passes.

Suddenly, the patient’s eyes open and he clears his throat, surprised that he’d been asleep. He turns to Maglaras. “That was so soothing,” he says.

“A big part of my work is to see a patient’s response to my music,” Maglaras explains. “As he started to relax, I took the tempo slower. As he appeared to fall asleep, I played even more quietly. I improvised a little bit in there in between melodies. I knew it was time to stop when he shifted and I felt the energy change.”

Elaine Nieberding, an oncology nurse at Mercy, says the music does more than help the individual patients. “Having music here provides a wonderful tone, not only for the patients — some of whom are closer to the end stage of life than others, some of whom are more conscious than others — but for the families and also for the staff. Hearing this music makes us all feel a healing presence.”

For Babies, Too

“It’s Cathy with the harp,” Maglaras calls into a speaker and is admitted into the neonatal intensive care unit, a room with a nurses station in the middle and incubators and bassinets around the edge.

“I don’t play for one particular baby,” Maglaras says. “If I’m near one, I’ll watch its responses. Sometimes a nurse will pick a baby up and sing or hum along.”

Amid the beeps, ringing phones and staff chatter, Maglaras’s harp creates a pervasive calm.

Amy Sheckels, a nurse, says, “Overall, [the music] makes things more even for the staff. . . . Especially today because we’re busy, [the music] centers you and brings you back to not so task-oriented and makes you think a little bit more broadly.”

Shanida Douglas of Baltimore, the mother of twins being treated in the unit, describes feeling soothed by the notes. The twins’ father, Alex Ross, says: “It’s a good atmosphere to feed the babies in. It feels good.”

For neonatologist Susan Dulkerian, the music reinforces the findings of studies: “There’s been good research on preemies that shows that loud noises and bright lights are not so good for babies in terms of their stress reactions, and their vital signs are different when there’s a loud environment versus a soothing environment, whether it’s a parent holding them or soothing music.”

Looking Ahead

From the neonatal unit to the chemo floor, Maglaras’s harp playing is gaining greater acceptance — and creating deeper bonds with patients and staff. “Sometimes I’m bone-tired when I get here, ” she says, but “there’s something about that exchange that I just get energized by. Sometimes it’s hard to leave.”

Advocates for therapeutic music believe it will gradually play a greater role in conventional medicine.

“Not long ago acupuncture was like, if it helps, whatever,” says Dan Collins, Mercy’s media relations senior director. “But there are New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA studies that show it does make a difference, so now we have a medi-spa here that provides acupuncture for cancer patients. We are now starting to see clinical trials being done and research coming out that says, ‘Yes, therapeutic music does make a difference.’ “

“In my mind, I see therapeutic musicians on every floor of every hospital, nursing home and hospice in the country,” says Loeb.

Comments: morrism@washpost.com.

As Victor Fabry napped in his hospital bed, a quiet symphony filled his room. The steady pulse of a cardiac monitor marked the progress of his mending heart. Over that beat, the swaying strains of a Brazilian guitarist pumped nearly nonstop from a CD player on the shelf.

For nine days after his surgery at the Gagnon Cardiovascular Institute in Morristown, N.J., Fabry soaked up that tranquil, wordless strumming. And while he praised his surgeon, he raved about the musical score that accompanied his recovery.

His heart literally fell in rhythm with guitarist Tomaz Lima. The music became his medicine.

“Very restful, very soothing,” said Fabry, 68, now almost two years removed from the surgery. Immediately after his operation, a live harpist also played at his bedside. “The mind influences your recovery. Anything that quiets your anxiety is powerful.”

Listen carefully and you’ll hear the same refrain at a rising number of hospitals. From Massachusetts General to the Mayo Clinic, patients are hearing the first strains of a harmonious movement — the infusion and inclusion of music in the treatment of ailments, from brain disorders to cancer. This goes beyond the psychological smile favorite songs can induce.

Doctors are increasingly studying — and employing — the physiological dance music does with the body’s neurons and blood-carrying cells.

“We’re in the infancy,” said Dr. Ali Rezai, director of the Center for Neurological Restoration at Ohio’s Cleveland Clinic. During a surgery called deep brain stimulation — performed while patients with Parkinson’s disease are awake — Rezai and his team play classical compositions and measure the brain’s response to those notes. “We know music can calm, influence creativity, can energize. That’s great. But music’s role in recovering from disease is being ever more appreciated.”

Using music to help the ill has been employed for thousands of years, even though modern medicine is just starting to understand how it works, said Dr. Claudius Conrad, a senior surgical resident at Harvard Medical School and, himself, a gifted pianist. He is set to launch the first study of music’s impact on the sleep cycles of acute-care patients.

“Research has already shown that if you play a piece — like Mozart — at a certain slow beat, the listener will adapt their heart beat to the beat of the music.”

From musical notes to hormone stimulation
The anatomical route musical notes take through the body is indeed a busy highway celebrated in many songs, from head to heart. Based on interviews with neurologists and cardiologists, the journey from an instrument string to your heart strings goes something like this:

Sound waves travel through the air into the ears and buzz the eardrums and bones in the middle ears. To decode the vibration, your brain transforms that mechanical energy into electrical energy, sending the signal to its cerebral cortex — a hub for thought, perception and memory. Within that control tower, the auditory cortex forwards the message on to brain centers that direct emotion, arousal, anxiety, pleasure and creativity. And there’s another stop upstairs: that electrical cue hits the hypothalamus which controls heart rate and respiration, plus your stomach and skin nerves, explaining why a melody may give you butterflies or goose bumps. Of course, all this communication happens far faster than a single drum beat.

Before jetting through the blood stream, the signals are converted again — to hormones. At the University of Munich, Conrad was able to show that critically ill patients required fewer sedative drugs when they listened to one hour of Mozart piano sonatas. As expected, the patients’ blood pressures and heart rates eased with the music.

But what surprised Conrad is that the patients also showed a 50 percent spike in pituitary growth hormone, which is known to stimulate healing. Today, at Massachusetts General Hospital, Conrad asks his patients (or their families) in the surgical intensive care unit what music they’d like to hear; if neither is can provide an answer, he often plays Mozart.

Healing dose of Lady Gaga?
Classical is a common pick among doctors and therapists who use melody as a healing tool. The vibrations of stringed instruments in particular are said to mesh with the energy of the heart, small intestine, pericardium, thyroid and adrenal glands, according to a soon-to-be-published study by researchers at Gagnon Cardiovascular Institute in New Jersey. But what about rock or hip hop? Country or house? Does the body react as positively to Lady GaGa as it does Bach? Do you heal faster with Beethoven or a dose of Miley Cyrus?

“I recommend listening to joyful music as part of an overall prescription for maintaining good heart health,” said Dr. Michael Miller, director of the center for preventive cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center.

Joyful? “Music that brings out a natural high in order to maximize endorphin release,” explained Miller, whose research (presented last November to the American Heart Association) showed that hearing your favorite song can cause tissue in your blood vessels to dilate, increasing blood flow.

Miller examined 10 healthy, non-smoking volunteers before and after they grooved to tunes of their choice and measured a 26 percent jump in the diameter of their upper arm blood vessels. (Conversely, after wincing through music they hated, the volunteers’ blood vessels narrowed by six percent.)

Prescription for helping brain injuries heal?
At Cleveland Clinic, Rezai and other neurosurgeons collaborate with The Cleveland Orchestra to compose classical pieces to play for patients during brain operations. Rezai then gauges how individual neurons fire when the head hears those foreign chords and cadences, and he compares that reaction to how the neurons behave when familiar songs fill the operating room. Hair-sized sensors placed in the brain translate those signals to an amplifier. Study results are expected in three to six months.

The firing of a neuron “may sound like static to some, but it’s music to my ears,” said Rezai. Patients tell him when the music soothes them, and Rezai can hear the corresponding changes in a single neuron. The research, he said, can serve as a keystone for other studies of music’s potential in treating people with traumatic brain injuries, stroke, multiple sclerosis and severe depression.

But some of the oldest healing music may still be the most potent. Frescos painted around 4,000 B.C. depict harp-playing priests. Today, live harpists can be heard at Gagnon, at the University of Rochester Medical Center and at least five other hospitals.

“This gentle but powerful instrument goes to the deepest places of the body that need to be healed,” said Tami Briggs, a pioneer in “harp therapy” who has played at the bedsides of hundreds of patients, including many at the Mayo Clinic. “I’m not a nurse, but I know enough about the monitors, and what I see is blood pressure usually goes down (when I play), oxygenation rates go up. That’s connected to that more peaceful place, where they are taking deeper breaths.”

The harp is the only instrument that has 20 to 50 strings and is open, unlike, say, a violin. When a harpist strikes a chord, she also opens vibrations in strings just above and below the few she plucks. Those vibes, Briggs said, are absorbed by the body.

“When I play, it’s as subtle as watching somebody relax in the littlest ways,” Briggs said. “They fall deeper into their bed.”

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 25 (HealthDay News) — The memories and emotions that people associate with familiar songs can be traced to the medial prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain where the wiring for memories and thoughts about music appears to be linked, a new study says.

The finding, published Feb. 24 in Cerebral Cortex online, might also explain why people with Alzheimer’s disease display strong emotional response to songs. This section of the brain is among the last to be affected by the neurological disease.

“What seems to happen is that a piece of familiar music serves as a soundtrack for a mental movie that starts playing in our head. It calls back memories of a particular person or place, and you might all of a sudden see that person’s face in your mind’s eye,” study author Petr Janata, associate professor of psychology at the Center for Mind and Brain at the University of California, Davis, said in a news release issued by the school. “Now we can see the association between those two things — the music and the memories.”

In his study, Janata had 13 university students listen to excepts of popular songs from their childhood while recording their brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. After each excerpt, students were quizzed about whether the tune was familiar to them, enjoyable and tied to a specific past event or memory for them. After the brain imaging work, the students took a survey to better detail the memories evoked by the tunes.

The music the students said evoked the strongest memories was also the music that brought about the most emotional responses in them, the study found. And the songs were also the ones that the fMRI scans revealed as causing the most activity in the medial prefrontal cortex.

The finding could be a jumping off point for developing a musical therapy to help people with Alzheimer’s, Janata said.

“Providing patients with MP3 players and customized playlists,” he speculated, “could prove to be a quality-of-life improvement strategy that would be both effective and economical.”

More information

The American Music Therapy Association has more about music therapy.

SOURCE: University of California, Davis, news release, Feb. 24, 2009