Tag Archives: Music

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Basic human rights

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I don’t have access to the content of this book, but I was struck by the abstract to this chapter:

The right to an education is an important human right and is regulated in considerable detail in Articles 13 and 14 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as well as in Articles 28 and 29 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. With the sole exception of the United States, all United Nations member States have accepted the right to education as a legally binding human right that needs to be implemented in their domestic systems. (emphasis added)

What’s wrong with education in the United States? The U.S.A. hasn’t accepted it as a legally binding human right. No wonder that (well, I won’t go there today).

Chapter: Music Education
Child Development and Human Rights
By Steven J. Holochwost, Elizabeth Stuk

The book citation is:
Fifer, J., Impey, A., Kirchschlaeger, P.G., Nowak, M., & Ulrich, G. (Eds.). (2022). The Routledge Companion to Music and Human Rights (1st ed.). Routledge https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003043478
eBook ISBN 9781003043478

Book Description
The Routledge Companion to Music and Human Rights is a collection of case studies spanning a wide range of concerns about music and human rights in response to intensifying challenges to the well-being of individuals, peoples, and the planet. It brings forward the expertise of academic researchers, lawyers, human rights practitioners, and performing musicians who offer critical reflection on how their work might identify, inform, or advance mutual interests in their respective fields. The book is comprised of 28 chapters, interspersed with 23 ‘voices’ – portraits that focus on individuals’ intimate experiences with music in the defence or advancement of human rights – and explores the following four themes: 1) Fundamentals on music and human rights; 2) Music in pursuit of human rights; 3) Music as a means of violating human rights; 4) Human rights and music: intrinsic resonances.

The book is scheduled for publishing on May 31, 2022. $250 for print, under $50.00 USD for ebook format.

I really gotta look into becoming a student or getting associated with an organization or library that would allow me to access research articles, journals, ans books. It’s the one thing I miss most about IBM: access to technical journals through the library. That, and the IBM Club band, aka the Blue Diamonds Jazz Orchestra (BDJO). 

While not exactly fitting in with music, but maybe under basic human rights (free speech, anyone?), here is an open access article reporting on the results of the Parkinson’s Voice initiative:

Conclusion first:

Sustained vowels may provide an objective, robust and streamlined approach towards informing PwP subtype assignment. The current study’s findings corroborate part of the PD research literature indicating the presence of four PD subtypes having been thoroughly validated on a large PwP cohort and externally validated on two additional PwP cohorts. There are important practical implications of defining PD subtypes using data that is easy to self-collect remotely such as speech signals and in particular sustained vowel /a/ phonations: they enable large-scale investigations and may bring us a step closer towards more personalized medicine approaches and targeted clinical management. The key limitation of the study is that we do not have additional clinical labels (e.g. UPDRS) or other self-reported outcome measures to map the resulting PD subtypes onto something that would be more tangible and comparable to related PD subtype studies. Future work could explore the extent subtypes form useful markers of symptom severity progression and conversely how PD progression might affect subtype membership for individual PwP. Similarly, further work could integrate additional modalities to speech to incorporate longitudinal passively collected modalities and self-reports which could be capturing PD-related symptoms, e.g. via using smartphones and wearables along the lines we have explored for mental disorders [64], [67]–[70]. Collecting additional modalities at scale using increasingly affordable technologies may provide new insights towards understanding PD subtypes which may translate into understanding individual PwP similarities, related PwP symptom trajectories, and ultimately lead to better symptom management strategies.

and from the abstract:

Purpose
People diagnosed with Parkinson’s (PwP) exhibit a diverse manifestation of heterogeneous symptoms which likely reflect different subtypes. However, there is no widely accepted consensus on the criteria for subtype membership assignment. We explored clustering PwP using a data-driven approach mining speech signals.
…
Results
We selected 21 dysphonia measures and found four main clusters which provide tentative insights into different dominating speech-associated characteristics (cophenetic coefficient=0.72, silhouette score=0.67). The cluster findings were consistent across the three PVI cohorts, strongly supporting the generalization of the presented methodology towards PwP subtype assignment, and were independently visually verified in 2D projections with t-SNE.

The citation (and the link to access) this open access article are:

Tsanas, T & Arora, S 2022, ‘Data-driven Subtyping of Parkinson’s using Acoustic Analysis of Sustained Vowels and Cluster Analysis: Findings in the Parkinson’s Voice Initiative Study’, SN Computer Science, vol. 3, 232. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42979-022-01123-y

and that’s all I have for today, folks!

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Keep on moving to (and making) music

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The evidence that rhythm, movement, and making music continues to accumulate as a therapeutic approach to address the symptoms and Quality of Life issues related to Parkinson’s Disease (PD).

Today we look at an article just out in Frontiers of Human Neuroscience, titled

Rhythm and Music-Based Interventions in Motor Rehabilitation: Current Evidence and Future Perspectives  

Over the last quarter of a century, increasing research results point to rhythm and music as effective and useful tools for treatment and rehabilitation of people with neurological disorders. This article reviews the evidence for four different approaches, what the consensus is at the present time, and, of course, suggests future directions.

The authors look at four different approaches:

  1. Rhythmic Auditory Stimulation (RAS)
  2. Music-Supported Therapy (MST)
  3. Therapeutic Instrumental Music Performance therapy (TIMP) and
  4. Patterned Sensory Enhancement (PSE)

The consensus of recent meta-analyses and systematic reviews is that, for Parkinson’s Disease (PD), is that RAS is an effective tool for improving gait, stride, and speed – folks walk faster and with longer steps with RAS. Additionally, evidence is showing that it also reduces freezing of gait (FOG), improves balance and reduces the occurrence of falls.

Neither MST nor TIMP have been studied much beyond the rehabilitation of stroke patients. They involve practicing on a keyboard or drums, beginning with the patient’s comfort level and increasing in difficulty. Some studies have begun to be used to investigate effectiveness as treatments for PD.  Some have shown improvements in motor dexterity. More research is needed, but in the meantime, learning to play drums or keyboards can’t hurt, and may enrich one’s quality of life (QOL).

Growing evidence in neurological and brain imaging have shown increased activity in the auditory and motor areas of the brain, indicating that brain plasticity might be achieved through music and rhythmic interventions. The authors note that RAS has been well studied with stroke and PD populations, but not with other movement disorders and Alzheimer’s populations. In addition MST and TIMP have only begun to be investigated as a means of restoring fine motor coordination.

The authors also call for neuroimaging use in studies, to better understand the physiological basis of the rehabilitation process. They point out the gaps in research and hope to provide a framework for future research – not so much a roadmap, I would think, but a laying out of what we know and what we don’t know, and what kinds of studies are needed to answer the questions about what we don’t know..  They state that “musical rhythm is a powerful tool” for therapy, and our understanding and exploration of how it modulates brain networks is in the initial stages.

 In other words, “We’ve only just begun.”

Meanwhile: Don’t stop moving to the music.

 

Citation:
Braun Janzen T, Koshimori Y, Richard NM and Thaut MH (2022) Rhythm and Music-Based Interventions in Motor Rehabilitation: Current Evidence and Future Perspectives. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 15:789467. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2021.78946

 

Dance, Dance for Parkinson's, depression, Exercise, Music, Parkinson's, Physical Therapy , , , , Leave a comment

What to do?

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When it comes to diseases like cancer, the UK medical folks have decided that the “fighting” and “warrior” mentality are counter-productive. For one, this mindset causes people to delay seeking treatment. I don’t have the exact citation at hand, but it is referenced in this blog somewhere, and you’re welcome to search for it. (Thankfully, this is not a dissertation or scholarly article, or I couldn’t have written the previous sentence and gotten away with it).

But when it comes to exercise as a good way to slow, and sometimes reverse the physical or cognitive symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease (PD), there ain’t no doubt in some folks minds that dance is one of the finer things around to combine aerobic exercise, movements, and cognitive challenges to build new connections between neurons in the brain.

From the Digital Commons at Sarah Lawrence College comes this Master’s Thesis:

Rajan, Sneha, “Embodied Medicine: Integrating Dance/Movement Therapy into Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation” (2021). Dance/Movement Therapy Theses. 79. https://digitalcommons.slc.edu/dmt_etd/79

Long story short: “Overall, physiatry and dance/movement therapy have separately helped so many people but developing a synergy between these fields has the potential to transform rehabilitative medicine.”(emphasis added).

Specifically addressing Parkinson’s Disease issues, she writes:

For individuals with Parkinson’s disease, studies have shown that physical rehabilitation is an effective way to manage motor and non-motor symptoms (Mitra et al., 2020). However, maintaining motivation for treatment is difficult because of progressive difficulties with physical disability and co-existing emotional factors, so as a result not many adults engage with enough physical exercise (Mitra et al., 2020). By incorporating cognitive, emotional, and social components, the exercise environment could become more engaging and multidimensional (Mitra et al., 2020). One experimental study examined the effects of dance/movement therapy sessions on the cognition, quality of life, and motor symptoms of patients with Parkinson’s disease (Mitra et al., 2020). They used a variety of techniques such as targeted body exercises, memory games, movement improvisation, guided imagery, rhythm work, contact improvisation, mirroring, body coordination and movement reflexes (Mitra et al., 2020). Music was also used to incorporate rhythm and sensory motor cues (Mitra et al., 2020).

As a result, participants showed a significant increase in cognitive functioning and a decrease in Parkinson’s related health difficulties. Additionally, patients reported improvements in coordination, mood, and memory (Mitra et al., 2020). Another study analyzed the effectiveness of music-based movement therapy on gait related activities in Parkinson’s patients (Dreu et al., 2011). They examined both individual music-based gait training and partnered-dance interventions. The music provides rhythmic cues that help synchronize movements and also facilitates emotional responses in the participants (Dreu et al., 2011). Participants showed improvements in walking velocity and balance (Dreu et al., 2011). (Emphasis added.)

 If I were to judge this Master’s thesis, I would suggest more sources, and more recent ones than the one she used in material about Parkinson’s in the paragraphs before the ones I quoted above. But I’m not on the faculty of Sarah Lawrence College, so that’s their loss.

And the answer to the question posed in the title of this blog entry “What to do?” is simple: Don’t Stop Moving To The Music!

 

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Research on the arts and outcomes related to Parkinson’s – and more related research and hypotheses

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For our first article, we have a review on group based dance, singing, music, and theatrical treatments on a variety show of outcomes. 

A systematic review of active group-based dance, singing, music therapy and theatrical interventions for quality of life, functional communication, speech, motor function and cognitive status in people with Parkinson’s disease

Basically, they found that the arts seemed to have positive effects for folks with PD – but that not all types of arts were evaluated against all of the outcomes listed. So “More research is needed” to look into all aspects. But it’s a good thing.

Next up is a review of the effects of oxytocin and the effects of music on the human brain. And on social behavior and bonding. While not specifically directed at Parkinson’s disease, it is certainly applicable to treatments for people with Parkinson’s.

Links Between the Neurobiology of Oxytocin and Human Musicality

 It is argued that many of these characteristics of oxytocin biology closely mirror the diverse effects that music has on human cognition and emotion, providing a link to the important role music has played throughout human evolutionary history and helping to explain why music remains a special prosocial human asset. Finally, it is suggested that there is a potential synergy in combining oxytocin- and music-based strategies to improve general health and aid in the treatment of various neurological dysfunctions.

Keywords: oxytocin, music, dance, reward, empathy, trust, therapy

If there is a link between neurobiology and music, then it stands to reason that music played a part in the evolution of modern Homo sapiens. That is the topic of the brief review of:

Music and the Meeting of Human Minds by Alan Harvey

The author addresses

  1. when and why  modern humans evolved musical behaviors,
  2. the evolutionary relationship between music and language, and 
  3. why humans, perhaps unique among all living species, universally
    continue to possess two complementary but distinct communication streams.

He argues that “early in our history, the unique socializing and harmonizing power of music acted as an essential counterweight to the new and evolving sense of self, to an emerging sense of individuality and mortality that was linked to the development of an advanced cognitive capacity and articulate language capability.”

Dopamine is one of the keywords, so it should be of interest to People with Parkinson’s.

Another article along similar lines is Music as a coevolved system for social bonding,  The authors put forth an hypothesis and

make testable predictions for future research, including neurobiological bases of musicality and relationships between human music, language, animal song, and other domains. The music and social bonding (MSB) hypothesis provides the most comprehensive theory to date of the biological and cultural evolution of music.

More materials on this area of interest:

Four principles of bio-musicology (2015)

Without it no music: cognition, biology and evolution of musicality (2015)

Motor constraints influence cultural evolution of rhythm 

Music and Language in Social Interaction: Synchrony, Antiphony, and Functional Origins

How to sum it all up?  In the words of James Brown: 

I Feel Good

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Where it’s at (at this moment )

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As a person who was diagnosed in late 2011 with Parkinson’s disease after several years of treatment for Essential Tremors that had gotten uncontrollable, I had Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) shortly thereafter (I had already decided to go for DBS to control the tremors, and in the additional testing, rigidity was observed, allowing the diagnosis).

Since then, thanks to a supportive care partner, a supportive community that provides exercise and dance classes, and now vocal exercises (singing) which I had initiated in 2015 along with a friend, now deceased, I am able to function fairly well. I consider my self ” the luckiest guy” to paraphrase Lou Gehrig.

So instead of my usual posting of an article or a few on a specific topic, I thought I would post this YouTube video documenting my current situation (albeit somewhat exaggerated for dramatic effect) as far as Parkinson’s Disease goes:

I Blame The Parkinson’s

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Say what?

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Not specifically related to Parkinson’s, this study looked into whether providing musical training to older non-musicians would have an effect on the experimental task.

Experienced musicians outperform non-musicians in understanding speech-in-noise (SPIN). The benefits of lifelong musicianship endure into older age, where musicians experience smaller declines in their ability to understand speech in noisy environments…  results suggest that short-term musical training in older adults may enhance neural encoding of speech, with the potential to reduce age-related decline in speech perception. [emphasis added]

The effects of short-term musical training on the neural processing of speech-in-noise in older adults

… these findings suggest that music training enhances neural responses to speech in speech-motor and control regions.The absence of training-related interactions with noise level suggests that the benefit of music training is related to processing speech in general, and not separating it from background noise;

– BUT analysis of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging showed electrical activities in a couple of areas of the brain related to speech perception for those who were in the musical training group.

Obviously, “further research is needed,” as the saying goes, and perhaps for longer periods of time.

Whatever type of musical training one chooses, singing, keyboard, string, or wind instruments, there’s another saying that applies to that as well: “It may not help, but it can’t hurt.”

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Music on the brain

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Why do we like some kinds of music but not others?

Back in college, Jerry Coker (who taught jazz improvisation, said that we tended to like music that was not entirely predictable, but that a certain level of surprise increased our enjoyment of jazz. Music that was too unpredictable led to diminished enjoyment. Now, a study has been done that mathematically analyzed people’s enjoyment of musical snippets, and basically confirmed what Jerry taught us. Surprise us every now and then, but don’t make us feel like we’re stupid and can’t guess the next note that’s coming along.

Here’s the article with a reference and link to the original research (if you can afford it): The brain’s favorite type of music

Dopamine’s role in music enjoyment.

In this study, researchers looked at people’s responses to music under three separate conditions. One group received levodopa, another received risperidone, a dopamine antagonist, and a third group received a placebo. Folks in the levodopa group reported and were recorded as having higher levels of enjoyment, and those taking the antagonist, lower levels of enjoyment. Each group[ went through all the conditions, separated by a week in between sessions. The results clearly indicate that dopamine is the brain is related to musical pleasure. Now, if  playing and singing music promote an increase of dopamine in the brain, we have a prescription for Parkinson’s Disease (and depression) that can’t be beat (although it can be counted off).

Dopamine role in musical pleasure    

the actual research article which appears to be available in its entirety online: Dopamine modulates the reward experiences elicited by music

 

 

 

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Oh, I’m walking to New Orleans… or maybe the Outback

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Here’s a conference poster reporting some recent research on music and gait… and the effects of dual tasks on Parkinson’s Disease diagnosed people. It seems that all the researchers are in Australia, hence the title to this post.

Walkin’ and Talkin’: dual task effects on Gait

They had a few different tasks – just walking, walking while saying all the words one could think of starting with the letter (name a letter), and walking while counting in intervals. The conclusion was that Dance For Parkinson’s® had a positive effect. Naturally, they called for more research with larger numbers of participants.

In the meantime, as I always say: Don’t stop moving to the music!

 

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We’ve got the beat… or maybe not

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Research into rhythmic deficits in Parkinson’s:

Previous research has demonstrated that people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) have difficulties with the perceptual discrimination of rhythms, relative to healthy controls…. insight into how people with PD process and perceive rhythm can refine our understanding of the well known problems of temporal processing in the disease

Subjective judgments of rhythmic complexity in Parkinson’s disease

In this study, conducted over the internet,

People with PD rated all rhythms as more complex across tempi, with significant group differences in complexity ratings at 120 and 150bpm, but not at 90bpm. Our analysis found a uniform elevated baseline for complexity judgments in the PD-group, and a strong association between the two groups’ rank-ordering the rhythms for complexity. This indicates a preserved ability to discriminate between relative levels of complexity. …we speculate that Parkinson’s disease affects judgment of complexity but not judgment of likeability.

So if I understand this correctly, folks with PD find rhythms, especially faster rhythms, to be more complex than do “normal” people.

As for me, I will still prefer syncopated rhythms, especially calypso, maybe because I heard them when I was too young to remember. Military marches in 2/4 time no longer appeal to me. In fact, I believe that the march that I wrote in high school during band camp, “To The Rear March, ” had a syncopated melody, but I can’t swear to it. Guess I’ll have to dig up the old sheet music and take a look.

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Oh, the title is long, and I can’t get through it in one breath

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Music and Metronomes Differentially Impact Motor Timing in People with and without Parkinson’s Disease: Effects of Slow,Medium, and Fast Tempi on Entrainment and Synchronization Performances in Finger Tapping, Toe Tapping, and Stepping on the Spot Tasks

Well, the title is a mouthful, isn’t it?

Basically, this study looked at the different effects of external Rhythmic Auditory Stimulation (RAS) on folks with Parkinson’s Disease (PD) compared with folks without PD, using different tempi and different ways to observe the ability to synchronize with the beat.

Although this blog has noted a previous study which indicated that an internal RAS (e.g., singing a song) was superior to external RAS to immprove one’s gait, I have received feedback from several caretakers that their person with PD can not sing or carry a tune, but has been able to improve gait and reduce freezing with external RAS. Thus, this study should be of interest.

Bottom line: This study showed that music was superior to a metronome stimulus in “entrainment” of the motor systems involved after the cue was removed. (look up entrainment in biomusicology on Wikipedia for a full description of what it means). In other words, once a body gets synchronized to the musical RAS, they can continue to walk at the same pace as if the music were still playing.

Of course, there is more to it than this brief report. For that, I’ve provided the link to the full article above.

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