Selected Podcast
Music and Medicine
Therapeutic music has proven beneficial for many patients. Henri Harps discusses the connection between music and medicine.
Transcription:
Bill Klaproth (Host): Therapeutic music is a growing practice that is proving to help many patients emotionally, cognitively, and physically. Here to talk with us about the intersection of music and medicine is Henri Harps, Music Programming Coordinator with Chicago Methodist Senior Services. Henri, thank you for your time. So at this point what is the connection of music and medicine, can you help explain that for us?
Henri Harps (Guest): Sure well first, thank you for having me on this program, but music is actually one of the most important physical and emotional processes that the human mind experiences. So music is very interesting because, though it’s direct processed and how we think about the process is a bit nebulous and a bit hard to understand and mysterious, what we do know is that music is one of the few truly whole brain activities. So what happens with music is when sound affects our auditory cortex. The auditory cortex in our limbic system in our brain, which effects our emotions and our memories, both of them are very closely linked. So for the most part, as soon as the auditory cortex is stimulated, it goes directly through the limbic system and drives an emotional response to what we hear, and so music is very interesting because for residents of CMSS, for aging Americans, and for Americans dealing with memory conditions, music and music intervention can exercise the full brain in that respect. So it’s not located in one particular place but the whole brain.
Host: So Henri, so is it safe to say then that therapeutic music has a positive effect both physically and mentally on the patient?
Henri: Well actually music has a bunch of different effects, so one of the more interesting lines of inquiry and research into music is about alleviating pain, which there are several very, very exciting studies going on now. Looking, trying to quantify what it does to alleviate pain. But it’s not just pain alleviation, but it’s stress management, it promotes overall general wellness, it can enhance memory. One of the very fascinating things about the limbic system, and in particular our hypothalamus, where our memories are, is that when you’re looking at a patient with memory loss, typically the hypothalamus is one of the last places effected, which is where music lies. So in my experience, I’ve seen many, many patients who are not very responsive, but they can hear a song that they may remember and the memory almost floods the rest of their brain and they can sing lyrics to a song where a lot of other information in their lives may be kind of confused.
Host: Wow, that’s amazing. So how do you introduce music into the resident’s individual care plan?
Henri: So each resident here at CMSS is going to have slightly different needs. So one of the most important aspects of our program is developing the proper tools to analyze what each resident would need specifically, and so depending on whether the resident – what service that the resident of ours needs, whether that is someone in long term skilled nursing who has a certain set of needs, or a person in assisted living who has another set of needs, or a person in memory care who has another set of needs – what we try to do is try to analyze what those needs are and then bring various kinds of music intervention to them based on their needs.
Host: And what type of music is this? I’m envisioning someone who might be in their 80s or 90s and they have a love of 50s music and you’re playing them 50s music, but at the same time, it’s got to be different from that or maybe it isn’t. I don’t know. Is that sometimes what you do? Or sometimes do you bring in people to play live music for people? How does this work?
Henri: Well I tend to think about two kinds of music. You either have respective music, which we can think of as listening to music, or active music, which we can think of as making music. When it comes to, let’s say you want to play a song for a CMSS resident. We have volunteers who come in and will listen to music with one of the residents. Typically what I will do is I will look at their age and then pick any popular music that was popular in between their 18th birthday and their 35th birthday, and in therapeutic music that’s a fairly common way that in a lot of ways that’s kind of when the memory is the strongest, and we’re also dealing with a generation of people for whom music was a physical product, more than it was a kind of participation. So I found that if you kind of use those guidelines, 18-35 you’ll typically find somewhere in there music that the resident will really enjoy, but in terms of live performances, I actually like to bring in a diversity of musicians. So we just have a couple of very, very exciting programs with the Chicago Sympathy Orchestra’s training orchestra where they came in and performed several of the Bach Brandenburg concertos for residents here at CMSS, which was a hit and they loved it, and we also had a string quartet several weeks earlier and they played several works from Beethoven, which was also a hit, and fairly soon I will be bringing in a bunch of different jazz musicians to play jazz in various stages, which I – judging from the excitement that I’m getting, I also think will be a hit. So it’s really kind of relaying on my experience as a musician to try to kind of guess as to what each resident would like if that makes sense.
Host: Absolutely. So do the residents request this service or does every resident at CMSS receive music therapy automatically?
Henri: It’s a request service right now, but we are working very, very hard to make sure part of the making sure it’s in the care plan so that it’s the services available to them and that they recognize that it’s available to them before they have to request it.
Host: And I’m sure that you see the difference that music makes in people’s lives. You’re right there in the room I’m sure a lot of the times. Tell us about that.
Henri: Oh I mean there’s so many ways in my short time here at CMSS that I’ve really seen music really have a profound effect. If you’ll allow me to tell an anecdote, we partner with an organization called Musicians on Call, which is based out of Nashville but brings individual music performances to each resident’s room. So there was a resident, and that resident was unresponsive, on hospice, and they were in the room with the resident’s daughter and the resident’s granddaughter, and the musician came in and sang a beautiful version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow on his ukulele, which just really brought all of the emotion in the room to a real beautiful kind of place where, kind of what we want music to do, to play a role in healing, to play a role in wellness, to be able to highlight an emotional moment, and just to see the effect with the resident, and the family, and myself and staff and the musician, and to see the kind of connection that that then builds, is exactly the kind of thing that we’re looking for, for every resident here at CMSS.
Host: Wow, this is just fascinating. So how do you provide training and therapeutic music to your direct care staff at CMSS?
Henri: Well what we’ll be doing is we’ll be doing this in kind of a two-fold way. One will be more of a traditional learning initiative, so that’ll kind of consist of lunch and learn, lectures, etc, but one of things that we’re really excited about too is providing an opportunity for our staff in order to express their musical joys and their musical talents. Because ultimately I think what the mature version of the music initiative would look like is for everyone to understand the importance of music and how they can bring that music to residents and a lot of that is improvisatory, to use improvisation, but also to empower our care staff in order to see something and then respond to it in a way that’s appropriate.
Host: So if someone there at CMSS plays the guitar or some other instrument, you’ll encourage them to participate in this?
Henri: Absolutely, absolutely.
Host: Well this sounds like a really interesting program, so I think it’s safe to say you’re working on reimaging how music can be brought to the lives of residents, building on current research while developing relationships with Chicago area organizations that share similar goals, and I’m sure the musicians that you bring in too get a lot our of this as well.
Henri: Yeah, that’s actually one of the most wonderful things about this whole process. You know, I have a background as a performing musician myself – as a performing musician myself, and before I began working here with CMSS I was moving in this direction, and so to see just I think there are so many musicians like myself that have a real community driven kind of love for bringing music not just as a performance – as an active performance, but also as an act of love and an act of community building, and so I hope to encourage every musician who comes and plays at CMSS to be a part of our community and help us build and use music as kind of a lingua franca to really build a closer, tighter community that is to the benefit of the residents here.
Host: Well Henri, that’s a great way to wrap it up. Thank you so much for your time today, we appreciate it. To learn more or to book a tour, visit cmsschicago.org, that’s cmsschicago.org. This is Living Well with Chicago Methodist Senior Services. I’m Bill Klaproth, thanks for listening.
Bill Klaproth (Host): Therapeutic music is a growing practice that is proving to help many patients emotionally, cognitively, and physically. Here to talk with us about the intersection of music and medicine is Henri Harps, Music Programming Coordinator with Chicago Methodist Senior Services. Henri, thank you for your time. So at this point what is the connection of music and medicine, can you help explain that for us?
Henri Harps (Guest): Sure well first, thank you for having me on this program, but music is actually one of the most important physical and emotional processes that the human mind experiences. So music is very interesting because, though it’s direct processed and how we think about the process is a bit nebulous and a bit hard to understand and mysterious, what we do know is that music is one of the few truly whole brain activities. So what happens with music is when sound affects our auditory cortex. The auditory cortex in our limbic system in our brain, which effects our emotions and our memories, both of them are very closely linked. So for the most part, as soon as the auditory cortex is stimulated, it goes directly through the limbic system and drives an emotional response to what we hear, and so music is very interesting because for residents of CMSS, for aging Americans, and for Americans dealing with memory conditions, music and music intervention can exercise the full brain in that respect. So it’s not located in one particular place but the whole brain.
Host: So Henri, so is it safe to say then that therapeutic music has a positive effect both physically and mentally on the patient?
Henri: Well actually music has a bunch of different effects, so one of the more interesting lines of inquiry and research into music is about alleviating pain, which there are several very, very exciting studies going on now. Looking, trying to quantify what it does to alleviate pain. But it’s not just pain alleviation, but it’s stress management, it promotes overall general wellness, it can enhance memory. One of the very fascinating things about the limbic system, and in particular our hypothalamus, where our memories are, is that when you’re looking at a patient with memory loss, typically the hypothalamus is one of the last places effected, which is where music lies. So in my experience, I’ve seen many, many patients who are not very responsive, but they can hear a song that they may remember and the memory almost floods the rest of their brain and they can sing lyrics to a song where a lot of other information in their lives may be kind of confused.
Host: Wow, that’s amazing. So how do you introduce music into the resident’s individual care plan?
Henri: So each resident here at CMSS is going to have slightly different needs. So one of the most important aspects of our program is developing the proper tools to analyze what each resident would need specifically, and so depending on whether the resident – what service that the resident of ours needs, whether that is someone in long term skilled nursing who has a certain set of needs, or a person in assisted living who has another set of needs, or a person in memory care who has another set of needs – what we try to do is try to analyze what those needs are and then bring various kinds of music intervention to them based on their needs.
Host: And what type of music is this? I’m envisioning someone who might be in their 80s or 90s and they have a love of 50s music and you’re playing them 50s music, but at the same time, it’s got to be different from that or maybe it isn’t. I don’t know. Is that sometimes what you do? Or sometimes do you bring in people to play live music for people? How does this work?
Henri: Well I tend to think about two kinds of music. You either have respective music, which we can think of as listening to music, or active music, which we can think of as making music. When it comes to, let’s say you want to play a song for a CMSS resident. We have volunteers who come in and will listen to music with one of the residents. Typically what I will do is I will look at their age and then pick any popular music that was popular in between their 18th birthday and their 35th birthday, and in therapeutic music that’s a fairly common way that in a lot of ways that’s kind of when the memory is the strongest, and we’re also dealing with a generation of people for whom music was a physical product, more than it was a kind of participation. So I found that if you kind of use those guidelines, 18-35 you’ll typically find somewhere in there music that the resident will really enjoy, but in terms of live performances, I actually like to bring in a diversity of musicians. So we just have a couple of very, very exciting programs with the Chicago Sympathy Orchestra’s training orchestra where they came in and performed several of the Bach Brandenburg concertos for residents here at CMSS, which was a hit and they loved it, and we also had a string quartet several weeks earlier and they played several works from Beethoven, which was also a hit, and fairly soon I will be bringing in a bunch of different jazz musicians to play jazz in various stages, which I – judging from the excitement that I’m getting, I also think will be a hit. So it’s really kind of relaying on my experience as a musician to try to kind of guess as to what each resident would like if that makes sense.
Host: Absolutely. So do the residents request this service or does every resident at CMSS receive music therapy automatically?
Henri: It’s a request service right now, but we are working very, very hard to make sure part of the making sure it’s in the care plan so that it’s the services available to them and that they recognize that it’s available to them before they have to request it.
Host: And I’m sure that you see the difference that music makes in people’s lives. You’re right there in the room I’m sure a lot of the times. Tell us about that.
Henri: Oh I mean there’s so many ways in my short time here at CMSS that I’ve really seen music really have a profound effect. If you’ll allow me to tell an anecdote, we partner with an organization called Musicians on Call, which is based out of Nashville but brings individual music performances to each resident’s room. So there was a resident, and that resident was unresponsive, on hospice, and they were in the room with the resident’s daughter and the resident’s granddaughter, and the musician came in and sang a beautiful version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow on his ukulele, which just really brought all of the emotion in the room to a real beautiful kind of place where, kind of what we want music to do, to play a role in healing, to play a role in wellness, to be able to highlight an emotional moment, and just to see the effect with the resident, and the family, and myself and staff and the musician, and to see the kind of connection that that then builds, is exactly the kind of thing that we’re looking for, for every resident here at CMSS.
Host: Wow, this is just fascinating. So how do you provide training and therapeutic music to your direct care staff at CMSS?
Henri: Well what we’ll be doing is we’ll be doing this in kind of a two-fold way. One will be more of a traditional learning initiative, so that’ll kind of consist of lunch and learn, lectures, etc, but one of things that we’re really excited about too is providing an opportunity for our staff in order to express their musical joys and their musical talents. Because ultimately I think what the mature version of the music initiative would look like is for everyone to understand the importance of music and how they can bring that music to residents and a lot of that is improvisatory, to use improvisation, but also to empower our care staff in order to see something and then respond to it in a way that’s appropriate.
Host: So if someone there at CMSS plays the guitar or some other instrument, you’ll encourage them to participate in this?
Henri: Absolutely, absolutely.
Host: Well this sounds like a really interesting program, so I think it’s safe to say you’re working on reimaging how music can be brought to the lives of residents, building on current research while developing relationships with Chicago area organizations that share similar goals, and I’m sure the musicians that you bring in too get a lot our of this as well.
Henri: Yeah, that’s actually one of the most wonderful things about this whole process. You know, I have a background as a performing musician myself – as a performing musician myself, and before I began working here with CMSS I was moving in this direction, and so to see just I think there are so many musicians like myself that have a real community driven kind of love for bringing music not just as a performance – as an active performance, but also as an act of love and an act of community building, and so I hope to encourage every musician who comes and plays at CMSS to be a part of our community and help us build and use music as kind of a lingua franca to really build a closer, tighter community that is to the benefit of the residents here.
Host: Well Henri, that’s a great way to wrap it up. Thank you so much for your time today, we appreciate it. To learn more or to book a tour, visit cmsschicago.org, that’s cmsschicago.org. This is Living Well with Chicago Methodist Senior Services. I’m Bill Klaproth, thanks for listening.