Music Therapy for Brain Injury Rehabilitation: improving communication and quality of life

As we celebrate Brain Injury Awareness Week (15-21st August 2022), we reflect on this year’s theme: Life is Bigger than a Brain Injury and want to talk about the benefits of singing in music therapy sessions to achieve post-brain injury communication and quality of life goals.

Whether we sing our favourite tunes in the shower or in the car on the way to work, singing is often a fun and expressive activity that many of us do! Singing benefits our health and wellbeing in many different ways. It can relieve stress, trigger the release of dopamine, improve respiratory function, help us express emotions, and participate in positive social interactions which can provide a sense of belonging. Music therapists draw from a range of singing-based interventions to promote these outcomes, as well as rehabilitate communication including speech and language post an acquired or traumatic brain injury. At Attuned Health our music therapist are certified Neurologic Music Therapists and we draw from a range of evidence based techniques.

We’re excited to introduce a client to you in this post, Lisa. Lisa is in her late 50s and had a significant brain injury. Music therapist has been an important part of her brain injury rehabilitation program. When Lisa first began music therapy, she was determined through her love of singing to improve her improve her communication on all fronts. In her weekly music therapy sessions, we have used various singing-based methods to focus on stimulating vocal output, and improving different parts of speech such as motor planning, timing, volume and speech control. Melodic Intonation Therapy, a technique drawn from Neurologic Music Therapy has been adopted in sessions with Lisa to use singing as a basis for supporting speech recovery.

Lisa has made significant progress with her speech being clearer, louder and more confident. The rhythmic foundation of music allows for Lisa to have a steady pulse to synchronise with and coordinate her movements - also known as entrainment (or rhythmic speech cueing). The processing of music in the brain engages both the left and right hemispheres to further activate the language networks that make communication possible. Singing shares neural pathways with speech and language networks making it a valuable tool for speech rehabilitation.  

Lisa and her family have expressed that music therapy sessions have been enjoyable and motivating and can see her communication improving. The beauty of music therapy is we can draw from a person’s existing musical interests, and highlight what they can do, in motivating, fun and meaningful ways.

Great work Lisa, we look forward to seeing you continue to achieve your goals through music therapy.