Music Therapy in neurological rehabilitation
 

Author:

Prof. Gabriella Giordanella Perilli

Abstract:
In two clinics in Rome our music therapy rehabilitation method – Music Therapy Integrated Model / MIM, is used for various kinds of pathologies (neurological disturb, chronic situation, elderly with anxiety and depression). Active and receptive Music therapy methods address cognitive, emotional, personal, and social areas. Goals could include attention, perception, memory, abstract thinking, metaphorical processes, emotions, along with self and others evaluation, and life meaning, depending upon each client’s needs and resources. Cases from our practice and a pilot study will illustrate how music therapy is helpful to develop new responses, especially in the emotional area. In fact emotive functions seem to be more affected by music experiences, which could enhance positive affects and deep emotions. Neurosciences support the issue that the brain, by rewarding music experiences, could organize new synaptic connections. Working with music therapy with elderly and neurological patients, it seems that the emotional or tacit knowledge, or emotional intelligence, could, partially, bypass cognitive deterioration, especially for maintaining affective relationships and communication, and for improving motivation to cooperate. The therapeutic relationship, as a secure basis, is the necessary platform within which participants could experiment themselves, in a satisfactory way, as individuals still able to propose and make choice in the group and in their daily life.

Our contribution could be relevant for defining effective clinical music therapy intervention with neurological population and elderly. By observing the efficacy of Music Therapy lasting outside the clinical setting, the Clinic Management decided to include it in their rehabilitation program, also because the physicians in the staff noted that some drugs and personnel’s burden for assistance were lowered in consequence of music therapy intervention.
 

Biographical details:
Prof. Gabriella Giordanella Perilli, P.hD, music therapist, psychotherapist, BMGIM Primary Trainer, invited professor at Tor Vergata University – psychiatric Department – Rome, dean of the post-degree School of Psychotherapy and Integrated Music Therapy – Rome.

Keywords: neurological rehabilitation, elderly, emotional intelligence, brain, cognition, music