Over 15,000 people in Switzerland are affected by Parkinson’s disease. Music can improve the mobility, motivation and mood of those affected. This is shown by a study conducted by the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts with international partners in collaboration with people with Parkinson’s.
What do Zucchero’s "Baila Morena", Dolly Parton’s "Jolene" and "Oh läck du mir" by Trio Eugster have in common? They are songs that can help people with Parkinson’s to cope with everyday life. In the research project "Music, movement, mood and Parkinson’s", the teams worked with Parkinson’s sufferers to develop new ways in which music can alleviate symptoms of the incurable neurological disease and improve quality of life. The Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU) led the project
Parkinson’s has more than just physical effects
In people with Parkinson’s, nerve cells die, particularly a group of nerves that produce dopamine. This throws movement, drive and body rhythm out of balance. This leads to symptoms such as tremors, stiffness, slower movements and even a freeze, and sometimes also changes in mood, sleep or thinking. Many sufferers also report a feeling of alienation from themselves or their own body.
Imagined music also helps
What influence does music have on Parkinson’s sufferers? "In our ’Songlines for Parkinson’s’ intervention, we focused on two areas: using the rhythm in the music as an acoustic signal and using the music in your own head as an internal signal to support walking and functional mobility," says Dawn Rose, music psychologist and project manager at HSLU. It has been shown that music can have an effect even if it is only imagined. For some patients, it even helped to imagine the lines of a song in order to get out of a freeze. The project therefore developed new rehabilitation strategies that help people with Parkinson’s to develop their own ’inner jukebox’ with musical signals. In doing so, they imagine melodies in their heads that serve as movement aids. One workshop participant reports on her experiences: "When I walk, I sometimes imagine music from my youth. This gives me a regular gait. This has given me a regularity of pace that I had never felt before."
The research team also found that music can help with more than just movement. As the disease often dampens the drive for activity in general, music can also help motivate people to exercise, improve their mood and help them become more positive.
Making the effect of music visible with motion capture
The researchers first conducted a survey to find out what music people with Parkinson’s already use in their everyday lives and why. They also conducted a series of workshops with people with Parkinson’s, therapists and neurorehabilitation specialists, to try out various musical activities - including drumming and dancing - and develop the new intervention together. The Parkinson’s patients gave feedback as experts on their own bodies. The research team adapted motion capture technology from the film industry to make changes during the intervention measurable. It makes it possible to measure important aspects of functional mobility, such as turning. This provided important insights into how the intervention worked.
Songlines for Parkinson’s
The Songlines for Parkinson’s course developed includes marching music, music from Africa, Latin America, India, Asia and the South Pacific. Each style of music focuses on a different therapeutic approach to alleviating Parkinson’s symptoms. For example, marching music helps to find and keep time while walking, while learning the haka, a warrior dance from the Maori culture of New Zealand, can improve facial expressions and vocal strength.
Putting it into practice
The Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts is now developing certified music and movement courses for health professionals so that they can put the findings directly into practice. Project manager Dawn Rose is also presenting the results at international conferences so that as many of the approximately 10 million people with Parkinson’s worldwide as possible can benefit from them.
A website as inspiration
On the website www.playlist4parkinsons.com, the research team collected the songs and pieces of music that survey and workshop participants were already using in playlists. The idea is not to listen to them all at once, but to use them as inspiration for people with Parkinson’s to put together their own playlist. The categories provide suggestions as to where music can be used to provide support.
Some of the categories are self-explanatory, others less so. One special category is ’Personal Anthems’. This is music that comes from one’s own history, is often connected to other people and therefore triggers strong emotions. Especially in moments of illness-related alienation from oneself and one’s own body, this music can strengthen the sense of self for people with Parkinson’s.
Most people have already experienced that music can provide rhythmic support when moving. For people with Parkinson’s, however, the disease often makes it difficult to decide what to do. That is why ’motivation’ is a category that is particularly important for them. This music sometimes helps them to get out of the house in the first place. Before taking part in the workshop, however, many had never even considered using music for this purpose.