Using Music Therapy as a Rehabilitation for Parkinson's Disease

Groeneveld, Sanne (2022) Using Music Therapy as a Rehabilitation for Parkinson's Disease. Bachelor's Thesis, Life Science and Technology.

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Abstract

This paper aims to discover the neurochemical pathways underlying the therapeutic effects of music on the symptoms of patients with Parkinson’s Disease. Since ancient times, music has been speculated to have healing properties. Music can evoke a wide range of emotions and has important functions including the regulation of mood, arousal, self-reflection, pleasure, and social bonding. Moreover, music can be applied as a therapeutic strategy to support development, health, and wellbeing. Music comprises numerous musical components, such as pitch, time information, timbre, emotion and meaning, giving it a complex multidimensionality. Thereby, listening to music affects the cerebral cortex and multisensory and motor integration regions in the frontal, parietal, and temporo-occipital brain regions. Research has demonstrated that music is a powerful stimulus for brain plasticity, implying it enhances learning and cognitive capabilities. Musical therapies can be positively applied to a broad range of diseases, including neurological disorders like aging, Alzheimer’s Disease, stroke, Autism Spectrum Disorders, and Parkinson’s Disease. Listening to music engages neurochemical systems for reward, motivation, and pleasure, stress and arousal, immunity, and social affiliation as it stimulates the release of dopamine, glucocorticoids and catecholamines, serotonin, and oxytocin. Rhythmic auditory stimulation and “relaxing” music (with a relatively low BPM) has been associated with improvements in gait in PD patients. Proposed mechanisms for music and rhythm-based interventions on PD involve the recruitment of alternative neural pathways, rhythmic entrainment, and enhanced motor learning. Moreover, it is suggested that the brainstem perceives music as a survival signal, which beholds that “stimulating” music may be interpreted as an alarm call leading to sympathetic arousal (respiration, heart rate and blood pressure), whereas “relaxing” music decreases sympathetic arousal as it mimics soothing sounds of nature. Yet, research has shown personality traits and temperament influence music-induced changes in neurochemistry, suggesting there is an individual variability in the response to music.

Item Type:	Thesis (Bachelor's Thesis)
Supervisor name:	Scheurink, A.J.W.
Degree programme:	Life Science and Technology
Thesis type:	Bachelor's Thesis
Language:	English
Date Deposited:	04 Aug 2022 09:10
Last Modified:	17 Aug 2023 15:25
URI:	https://fse.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/28173

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