Page 37 - NAMAH-Oct-2020

Namah Music Therapy-induced speech...

intelligibility and leads to communicative therapy sessions, a wide range of musical
difficulties. The neurological damage underlying exercises, involving oral motor and respiratory
dysarthria may occur as a result of a stroke, exercises (OMREX), was applied. Some of their
traumatic brain injury or neurodegenerative results, after 24 music therapy sessions, showed
disease. enhanced use of respiratory capacity and
support, which was expressed by fewer
Research pauses in the post-treatment speech. Due to
improved respiratory capacity, the patients
Beginning in the 1950s, music therapists, were also able to speak more words per
as well as other professionals in the area of phrase and showed more natural speech
speech and language rehabilitation, began to rhythms than before treatment. Tamplin also
document case-studies and observations of documented a carry-over effect that led to
the effectiveness of singing facilitating speech an increase in functional communication by
for people with aphasia, apraxia, language some of the participants following the music
delays, and other speech disorders (4). therapy intervention. (7)

Michael Thaut and colleagues conducted
an experimental trial on 20 patients with
Parkinson’s disease who had mild to
severe forms of dysarthria. They found a
significant improvement among initially
poorly intelligible participants (with the
intelligibility of less than 60%). Cueing was
most efficient at 60% of the habitual speaking
rate. The best cueing modus was one syllable
per beat. (5)

Pilon and colleagues conducted a study of
three traumatic brain injury patients with
mixed dysarthria. They compared RSC
(metric cueing word by word at the reduced
pacing rate of 80%) with singing at an equally
reduced pace and the pacing board (a small
board with five marked sections for the
patients to tap with each word). In this small
study, RSC caused the largest improvements
in intelligibility. (6)

Tamplin conducted a pilot study to investigate Therapeutic mechanisms
the effect of vocal exercises on intelligibility and
speech naturalness for people with dysarthria As speaking is a very complex sensorimotor
due to TBI or stroke. In individual music function of numerous muscles, the rhythmic

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