Music therapy is a systematic intervention process in which a therapist helps patients to improve health, utilizing musical experiences and the relationships that develop through them, such as dynamic forces of change. It is a multidisciplinary process in which one uses, basically, music as the primary element of work².

The idea of music with therapeutic effects,affecting human health and behavior, is as ancient as the writings of Aristotle and Plato. Music has been used therapeutically for centuries, and there are numerous examples of music.s curative and preventative powers, in many historical documents from different cultures³.

1o Therapeutic Characteristics of Music Therapy:

1. Music captivated and maintain. Ti stimulates and utilizes many parts of the brain.

2. Music is easily adapted to, and can be reflective of a person’s abilities.

3. Music structures time in a way that we can understand.

4. Music provides a meaningful, enjoyable context for repetition.

5. Music provides a social context – it sets up a safe, structured setting for a verbal and nonverbal communication.

6. Music is an effective memory aid.

7. Music supports and encourages movement.

8. Music taps into memories and emotions.

9. Music, and silences with it, provides nonverbal immediate feedback.

10. Music is success-oriented – people of all ability level can participate.

The Benefits:

As music affects the body and mind in many powerful ways, it is being used to help cancer patients and even children with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). Music Therapy can also be designed to:

· Promote wellness

· Manage stress and pain^4-8

· Ward off depression⁹

· Alleviate pain

· To calm patients

· Enhance memory

· Improve communication

· Promote physical rehabilitation

· Ease muscle tension

It is also proven that Music Therapy is especially effective in three key medical areas.

1.Pain, anxiety and depression¹⁰,

2.Mental, emotional and physical handicaps,

3.Neurological disorders and mesothelioma¹¹.

Ancient Indian music has devised a special therapy based on the 72 ragas. It is appropriate to define Raga at this point. Raga is neither melody alone, not notes; neither scale nor mode. It's an ensemble of all these.According to an ancient Indian text, Swara Shastra, the seventy-two melakarta ragas (parent ragas) control seventy-two important nerves in the body. It is believed that a person who sings/performs a raga bound to the raga specifications (lakshanas) and with purity in pitch (swara shuddi) will have complete control on the corresponding nerve.

To quote a few, for those who suffer from hypertension, ragas such as Ahirbhairav and Todi are prescribed. To control anger and bring down violence within oneself, Carnatic ragas like Punnagavarali, Sahana and so on, come handy. Not only psychological, but the somatic or physiological impact of ragas have come to light in recent research. For instance, stomach-related disorders are said to be cured with some Hindustani ragas such as Deepak (acidity) and Jaunpuri (constipation) and Malkauns or Hindolam (intestinal gas and fever). Simple iterative musical rhythms with low pitched swaras, as in bhajans are capable of relaxation, as observed with the alpha-levels of the brain waves. They may also lead to favourable hormonal changes in the system.

Raga	Disease(s) it helps cure
Ahir Bhairav	Indigestion Rheumatic Arthritis Hypertension
Asavari	to build confidence
Bageshri	insomnia
Basant Bahar	Gall Stones (Cholecystitis)
Bhairavi	Rheumatic Arthritis Sinusitis encourages detachment
Bhim palas	Anxity, Hypertension
Brindabani Sarang	Depression
Chandrakauns	Anorexia
Darbari	Sedetive
Darbari Kanada	Headache Asthama
Deepak	Indigestion Anorexia Hyperacidity Gall Stones(Cholecystitis)
Gujari Todi	Cough
Gunakali	Rheumatic Arthritis Constipation Headache Piles or Hemorrhoids
Hindol	Rheumatic Arthritis , Spondilitis Backache Hypertension
Jaunpuri	Intestinal Gas Diarrhoea Constipation
Jaijawanti	Rheumatic Arthritis Diarrhoea Headache
Kafi	Sleep disorders
Kausi Kanada	Hypertension Common Cold
Kedar	Headache Common Cold Cough Asthma
Khamaj	Sleep disorders
Madhuvanti	Piles or Hemorrhoids
Malkauns	Intestinal Gas
Malhar	Asthma
Marwa	Indigestion Hyperacidity
Nat Bhairav	Indigestion Rheumatic Arthritis Colitis
Puriya	Colitis Anaemia Hypertension
Puriya Dhanashri	Anaemia
Ramkali	Colitis Piles or Hemorrhoids
Shree	Anorexia Common Cold Cough Asthma
Shudh Sarang	Anorexia Gall Stones (Cholecystitis)
Shyam Kalyan	Cough Asthma
Sohani	Headache
Yaman	Rheumatic Arthritis

Music can reduce stress hormones (ACTH, cortisone) and increase the emotional neurohormone, beta endorphin, acting as a protection mechanism against emotional excitation.Ralph Spintge, M.D., co-founder and currently President of the International Society for Music in Medicine (ISMIM), writing in Applications of Music in Medicine, reports that levels of neurohormones and neurotransmitters such as dopamine, noradrenaline, endogenous morphines, enkephalin and phenylethylmine can be elevated through music.Spintge ,an anesthesiologist quoted,Physiological parameters like heart rate, arterial blood pressure, salivation, skin humidity, blood levels of stress hormones like adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), prolactin, human growth hormone (HGH), cortisol, betaendorphine, show a significant decrease under anxiolytic music compared with usual pharmacological premedication.EEG studies demonstrated sleep induction through music in the preoperative phase. The subjective responses of the patients are most positive in about 97 percent of the 59,000 evaluated, These patients state that music is a real help to them to relax in the preoperative situation and during surgery in regional anesthesia.

As part of a Body Watch PBS health series, show number 14 featured Music and Health, and included a section exploring the medical applications of music. Impressive evidence of music's POWER is illustrated by the effects of heart beat music on newborns. The Baby Go-To-Sleep tapes were designed by Terry Woodford utilizing traditional children's songs. A second approach, Transition tapes, developed by anesthesiologist Dr. Fred Swartz, utilized a different genre of music, a style generically called New Age music, and research has also been shown it to have a POWERful effect on babies.

On the other end of the life span, music has been shown to have a POWERful effect upon senior adults diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. In workshops and courses a play of a brief media example of a music therapist working with a man in an advanced stage of Alzheimer's, and in less than one minute is seen one of the most vivid examples of the POWER of music I have in my vast video library, as he is transformed from chaos to coherence in front of our eyes.

Mitchell Gaynor M.D. in his book Sounds of Healing, cites evidence that music has therapeutic POWER involving the effects of music on a variety of physiologic functions and parameters. They include:Reduced anxiety, heart and respiratory rates. When forty patients who had suffered recent heart attacks were exposed to "relaxing music", then assessed for heart rate, respiratory rate, and measurable states of anxiety, results indicated statistically significant reductions in all three measures..Reduced cardiac complications. Patients admitted to a coronary care unit after suffering heart attacks, if exposed to music for two days, had fewer complications than those who were not. Lowered blood pressure, heart rate and noise-sensitivity in heart surgery patients. A 1997 study reported that the use of music intervention with cardiac surgery patients during the first postoperative day decreased noise annoyance, heart, and systolic blood pressure.Increased immune cell messengers. A 1993 report at Michigan State University disclosed that levels of interleukin-I (an immune-cell messenger molecule that helps to regulate the activity of other immune cells) increased by 12.5 to 14 percent when subjects listened to music for fifteen-minute periods. Subjects who listened to music they chose exhibited up 10.25 percent lower levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that can depress the immune system when produced in excess.Boost in natural opiates. In an experiment done at the Addiction Research Center in Stanford University in California, subjects listened to various kinds of music, including marching bands, spiritual anthems, and movie soundtracks. They reported feelings of euphoria, leading researchers to suspect that the joy of music is mediated by the opiate chemicals know as endorphins --the brain's natural painkillers. To test this theory, researchers injected listeners with nalexone, which blocks opiate receptors. The listeners experienced reduced sensations of pleasure, suggesting that certain types of music can boost endorphins, which have other health benefits, including a stronger immune system.A music therapist at Duke University Hospital, Cheryl Benze, has found, while working with more than 1,000 patients annually for the past 18 years, that music therapy primarily helps patients by reducing stress and pain, crediting the listening to music with triggering the production of serotonin, which causes pleasure. A breakthrough study with a group of 61 retirees in Florida in 1998 taking group keyboard lessons over a period of two 10-week semesters found that music making had a significant effect on increasing levels of human growth hormone (HGH).

Sally had been diagnosed with leucoencephalopathy. She was mute; apart from crying, she made no vocal sounds. She spent her days pacing the long nursing home corridor and crying. Although she seemed to have lost the ability to recognize objects, she navigated well. If she walked into something, including a person, she would touch it and immediately seem to identify its purpose. One day, as I played some tunes to other residents, I was surprised to hear a beautiful voice singing the complete lyrics to the song I was playing. I turned to the door to see Sally dancing and singing her way into the room.

Mary, a 56-year-old music therapy patient, had been in a coma for three months. It left her with severe dysarthria— a lack of vocal tone and severely distorted articulation. Spasmodic tremors contributed to the severity of her symptoms, and she had an open tracheotomy that made vocal sound production even more difﬁcult. We knew that Mary had sung in her church choir and was familiar with many old hymns. In fact, even with her inability to sustain any intelligible sounds, she participated in weekly music therapy sessions on her hospital unit, silently smiling at the old tunes. With encouragement, she would attempt to sing along. I could see that her problem resulted in part from lack of coordination between her breathing and her attempts to form a sound, so I asked her to tap her ﬁnger as she tried to make a sound. Just that rhythm imparted enough coordination to gain some success, and soon she could sustain the tone for longer. Once Mary became aware of her increasing ability to alternate breathing and making sounds, in a pattern cued by her tapping ﬁnger, she carried this ability over to pacing syllables and short phrases in speech. Before she started music therapy, she could articulate three-syllable phrases with the help of some cueing to breathe at the initiation of the phrase. She also knew the skills she needed to succeed: breathe, speak slowly, exaggerate articulation, and make a syllable-by-syllable attack. She could repeat single words and phrases, albeit with many attempts at self-correction.

Sam, a man in his late 60s, was recovering from a stroke. His physical therapist rated him a “guarded walker”—able to shufﬂe along with a quad cane, but not steady enough to walk outdoors, where he might have difﬁculty negotiating the uneven pavement. Because his left side was weak, his left foot dragged along the ﬂoor, causing him to take faltering steps. Each step was slow and hesitant, as Sam focused intensely on the process of walking. After he had been in traditional physical therapy for two months, and was showing little further improvement, he was referred to music therapy in the hope that he could improve his sense of his body’s position and his balance.The physical therapist tested Sam’s gait, and I found music with a tempo that matched the pace of his stride. He knew the music and was comfortable walking to it. In fact, he told me how, as a teenager, he used to go dancing every week at the gym. As he walked, he became more conﬁdent of his movements. Amazingly, he began to add dance steps, sliding his feet or clicking his heels. He said he couldn’t help it; it just happened. He wasn’t “thinking about walking,” he said, he was “thinking about dancing.”

Researchers at the Institute for Music Therapy in Germany conducted a pilot crossover study involving 12 children [4-6.5 years of age] with developmental ages of between 1- 3.5 years to monitor the effects of music therapy on children's mental development. The results, after the first three months, revealed significant [developmental] improvement, including better hearing and speech, improved eye-hand co-ordination, and improved communications skills in children in the music therapy group. This was not seen in the control group.

Some have Alzheimer's disease; others suffer from dementia from other causes. Yet when soothing music, with a hint of bright flutes and piano, begins playing in the background, the residents' behavior begins to change subtly. Those who might have been upset or disturbed become less so; unfocused eyes begin to sharpen and try to locate the source of the music. A man in the middle of the circle picks up a guitar and begins playing and singing an upbeat, happytune, stopping to look at each person fully, laughing, maintaining eye contact with them as he moves around the circle, smiling broadly. His audience becomes more animated. Some begin clapping with the beat, smiling, nodding their heads. The transformation appears almost magical: People who previously had been completely withdrawn appear more aware of themselves and their surroundings, more focused, displaying interest.

REFERENCES:

1. Liaguno, C. S. (2007). What do brain waves have to do with frequencies. In Authentic response. Retrieved April 18, 2008, from http://www.authentic-response.com/meditation-center.htm

2. Henry LL. Music therapy: a nursing intervention for the control of pain and anxiety in the ICU. A review of the research literature. Dimens Crit Care Nurs. 1995;14:295-304.

3. Grant R. Music therapy assessment for developmentally disabled clients. In: Wigram T, Saperston B, West R, editors. The art and science of music therapy: a handbook. London: Harwood Academic; 1995. p. 273-87.

4. Heitz L, Symreng T, Scamman FL. Effect of music therapy in the postanesthesia care unit: a nursing intervention. J Post Anesth Nurs. 1992;7:22-31.

5. Good M, Stanton-Hicks M, Grass JA, Anderson GC, Lai H-L,Roykulcharoen V, et al. Relaxation and music to reduce postsurgical pain. J Adv Nurs. 2001;33:208-15.

6. Standley JM. A meta-analysis of the efficacy of music therapy for premature infants. J Pediatr Nurs. 2002;17:107-13.

7. Whipple B, Glynn NJ. Quantification of the effects of listening to music as a noninvasive method of pain control. Sch Inq Nurs Pract. 1992;6:43-58.

8. Henry LL. Music therapy: a nursing intervention for the control of pain and anxiety in the ICU. A review of the research literature. Dimens Crit Care Nurs. 1995;14:295-304.

9. Maratos, AS., Gold, C., Wang, X., Crawford, MJ. (2008). Music therapy for depression(Review). The Cochrane Library. Issue 1

10. Mok E, Wong K-Y. Effects of music on patient anxiety. AORN J.2003;77:396-7, 401-6, 409-10.

11. Labbe, E., Schmidt, N., Babin, J., Pharr, M. (2007). Coping with Stress: The Effectiveness of Different Types of Music. Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback. Vol 32, pgs 163-168.

Received on 13.11.2009

Accepted on 12.12.2009

Research J. Science and Tech. 2(1):Jan. – Feb. 2010: 08-11