Music is Medicine - Ask the Experts

Podcast episodes

• Season 1

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  Episode 17 - Dr. Mukund Acharya

  Episode 17 - Dr. Mukund Acharya

  S01 E17

  48:33

  Dr. Mukund Acharya discusses his career as a social entrepreneur and healthy aging advocate. He has founded/co-founded several non-profits including Sandhya's Touch, focused on improving quality of life for patients and families dealing with serious or chronic illness, and Sukham, which promotes healthy aging and preparation for life transitions in the healthcare arena. Music Mends Minds encourages you to read more about him at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mukund-acharya-7345521a “Healthy aging is about creating the environments and opportunities that enable people to be and do what they value through their lives“ (21:01) “Healthy aging is about much more than staying physically healthy. It’s about staying emotionally healthy and maintaining a sense of purpose and zest for life.“ (22:31) “All these age related changes that are inexorable, that are bound to occur as we grow old chronologically, those changes are inevitable. But they can be mitigated by good habits. Primarily, research has shown, that sleep, exercise, nutrition, and stress reduction are 4 of the main things that help us maintain a younger ‘biological’ age than what our chronological age is.” (24:36) “If we can prevent seniors from feeling lonely, and loneliness is a feeling- its a state of mind, we can do a lot to help them stay healthy.“ (32:47) “Music transports you to the past. That’s just the force of music. It connects us with nature.” (34:17) “Music brings people together. Group singing helps people of all ages. Seniors in particular congregate and feel connected when there’s music.” (37:09)

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  Episode 16 - Dr. Rudolph Tanzi

  Episode 16 - Dr. Rudolph Tanzi

  S01 E16

  55:25

  Dr. Rudolph Tanzi discusses groundbreaking progress in the fight to cure Alzheimer's and the ways music can help alleviate symptoms and promote brain connectivity. Music Mends Minds encourages you to read more about him at https://brain.harvard.edu/?people=rudolph-e-tanzi “That early stage of Alzheimer’s is a very frustrating time. It’s actually when music therapy can be very useful because it can calm a person down after they hear the music that they love.” (7m 42s) “I like to think about music as the back door to the parts of the brain that are affected in Alzheimer’s disease. These parts of the brain that are involved with short term memory are intimately linked to the parts of the brain where you have music memory.” (9m 36s) “These nerve cells in the parts of the brain where there is music memory, somehow these nerve cells are not vulnerable to the amyloid plaque. […] It seems like the neurons, the nerve cells in the music memory parts of the brain, when they encounter amyloid, if they even do, they don’t make tangles, they don’t undergo this cell death.” (12m 57s) “When you are learning music you’re also learning how to learn. You’re improving your speed of processing. You’re improving your memory […] So what we are seeing in those people who are learning music was improved processing speed and memory just after 3 months of weekly lessons.” (18m 21s) “It’s a magical thing. Music at that point becomes like a bridge where these parts of the brain start getting all activated and people are having interactive experiences, social experiences, rather than being and feeling isolated. All that despair, the disconnection, goes away while they are listening to that waltz. We need more of that. And the more we start doing that and the more doctors start hearing about it, the more they will start using it in rehabilitation centers and suggesting that nursing homes do this.” (23m 04s) “There are many interested parties who want to help out and do this. And it’s a movement. That’s why what you’re doing there with Music Mends Minds, that’s the center of the revolution.” (23m 57s)

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  Episode 15 - Dr. Mary Mittelman

  Episode 15 - Dr. Mary Mittelman

  S01 E15

  43:37

  Dr. Mary Mittelman discusses her research surrounding music's effects on the wellbeing of both patients and their caregivers. Music Mends Minds encourages you to read more about her at https://med.nyu.edu/faculty/mary-s-mittelman [Re: The Unforgettables] “Some of the scientists at NYU said […] ‘They’ll never learn new songs, they have dementia.’ Well they learned 18 new songs for every concert.” (9m 39s) “Sometimes the people get up and dance spontaneously. And people with behavioral problems don’t ever seem to have them when they’re rehearsing or singing in the concerts. And the people perform at a level of functioning that is sometimes much higher in the rehearsals than they can be any other time.” (12m 0s) “The part of the brain that is less quickly affected by dementia of almost any kind is the part that can perform, that can enjoy music, that can make art.” (15m 59s) “The Research that we conducted, which was published in International Psychogeriatrics in 2020, showed that both the people with dementia and their caregivers experienced significant improvements over the 13 weeks of rehearsal. In their mood, in their self esteem, in their quality of life.” (20m 6s) “I think we have a huge job ahead of us still, to get both the people who are being prescribed the medicine and the people prescribing it to understand the value of the arts as much as the value of a drug- or maybe more.” (26m 35s) “ Anything we can do to bring joy to people that doesn’t cause harm should be included in their lives.” (30m 9s)

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  Episode 14 - Dr. Theresa Allison

  Episode 14 - Dr. Theresa Allison

  S01 E14

  36:24

  Dr. Theresa Allison discusses her background in ethnomusicology and how she came to study music's potential to improve quality of life in dementia caregiver relationships. Music Mends Minds encourages you to read more about her at https://geriatrics.ucsf.edu/people/theresa-allison "The community of voices project which showed the increases in meaningful engagement and social engagement and I think most importantly incredible sustainment. They did a trial of 12 choirs, now there are 15. Studies long gone, universities long gone, collaboration continues between the area institute on aging and the community music center." (4:47) "Given the right support structure music could actually become a very important part of the caregiving relationship and also of the self care of the caregiver." (7:29) "Music is a marker of identity. And we all have multiple identities, […] our ethnic identity, our local identity, our heritage, our communities, our preferred musics, recognizing music isn’t one thing, and not just assuming everyone is going to listen to Sinatra because they're 80 is really important." (11:14) "One of the benefits is that of lifelong learning, and constantly stretching the brain to grow, and another is this business of cross cultural understanding and breaking down stereotypes." (14:45) "[Research studies] have shown really clearly the importance of bringing older generations and younger generations together, especially in choirs, in music making together, listening together." (17:27) "We all like to learn new music, and if our underlying sources of meaning remain stable in, not every form of dementia, but certainly in Alzheimer’s and most vascular dementia, shouldn’t we maybe expect that we continue to love to learn?" (19:45) "One of the beautiful things about music is that people with dementia can continue to sing after they are unable to speak. But there are cases where people can no longer even sing and so to have this environment in which we bring the body we have with the cognitive and physical function we have, and we are welcome and we are included- This is kind of space that then opens up to people with hearing loss who might otherwise feel that they’re unable to participate in music, when they can still feel a beat, and they can still see and train and move." (23:49)

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  Episode 13 - Dr. Julene Johnson

  Episode 13 - Dr. Julene Johnson

  S01 E13

  42:05

  Dr. Julene Johnson talks about her career studying music, health and aging, and the importance of community interventions. She also discusses the initiatives and research process within the Sound Health Network. Music Mends Minds encourages you to read more about her at https://profiles.ucsf.edu/julene.johnson “I couldn’t believe it. This was from somebody who wasn’t communicating with me, and clearly the room was having trouble socially connecting and everybody at that point lit up and started singing along with her music that she was playing. […] It was so striking that music had such a powerful impact on the ability not only for this person to connect to or reconnect with who they were as a person, but also inspire the room to connect and be with others and socialize and sing along.” (3:30) “At the end of the 6 months of singing we found that older adults who sang in a choir had statistically significant reductions in feelings of loneliness, but also they had more interest in life.” (7:21) “The idea is that we are designing something that is community supported, kind of ground-up from the community, and something that the community wants. And the ultimate outcome of that is it becomes adopted by the communities, it gets disseminated widely, and then ultimately it affects the health of the communities.” (11:24) “I think any background can engage, certainly there’s some types of music that are easier and more accessible, sort of as an entry level. The singing is helpful, the drumming is also really great.“ (15:07) “Listening to familiar music engages networks of the brain that are involved in what we think are long-term memory and retrieving those memories. Also emotion, self-identities- so if you have listened to a familiar song there’s probably autobiographical memory that’s associated with that song.“ (17:20) “When you’re learning new music, I think what’s unique is you are engaging the parts of the brain that are involved in learning new information. So in the case of music, again the auditory cortex - you’re hearing it. Your attention might be slightly different because you’re hearing something new so your attention networks are paying close attention to the new music. But then you might involve your medial temporal lobes, which are involved in learning new information. And with rehearsal and practice, eventually those get transferred to the networks that we think are more long-term memory.” (18:55) “We do know from some studies that the cerebellum is a very important part of those networks that are involved in music processing. So there’s something special about coupling music and movement. […] We certainly know that the process of learning music is repetitious, so you’re doing it over and over and over again. But you’re doing it in a way that’s pleasurable, interesting, and meaningful.” (35:00)