Research has shown that listening to music daily improves language recovery in patients who have experienced a stroke. However, the neural mechanisms underlying the phenomenon have so far remained unknown.
In a new study from the University of Helsinki, researchers compared the effect of listening to vocal music, instrumental music and audiobooks on the recovery of the language functions of patients who had suffered an acute stroke.
They found listening to vocal music improved the recovery of the language network in the left frontal lobe compared to listening to audiobooks. These changes correlated with the recovery of language skills.
The finding expands the understanding of the mechanisms of action of music-based neurological rehabilitation methods.
Aphasia, a language impairment resulting from a stroke, causes considerable suffering to patients and their families.
Current therapies help in the rehabilitation of language impairments, but the results vary and the necessary rehabilitation is often not available.
According to the team, listening to music could be used as a cost-efficient boost to normal rehabilitation, or for rehabilitating patients with mild speech disorders when other rehabilitation options are scarce.
After a disturbance of the cerebral circulation, the brain needs stimulation to recover as well as possible. This is the goal of conventional rehabilitation methods as well.
Unfortunately, a lot of the time spent in the hospital is not stimulating. At these times, listening to music could serve as an additional and sensible rehabilitation measure that can have a positive effect on recovery, improving the prognosis.
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The study is published in eNeuro. One author of the study is Postdoctoral Researcher Aleksi Sihvonen.
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