This article examines how music therapy can improve mood, motivation, emotional status, and cognitive functions in clients with multiple sclerosis (MS). MS can affect a wide range of clinical areas that are also targets in music therapy, including motor control, fatigue, pain, dysphagia, psychiatric disorders, cognitive deficits, and quality of life. Up to 50% of MS clients can experience major depression (compared with 10-15% average in the general population). Cognitive dysfunction affects 43%-70% of clients with MS, primarily in the domains of attention, visual and verbal memory, and processing speed. However, language function remains relatively intact.

Two Neurologic Music Therapy techniques were used: 1. Associative Mood and Memory Training (AMMT) and 2. Music in Psychosocial Counselling (MPC). The first technique uses previously known music to activate autobiographical memories that are stored in long-term memory nodes within the brain. In doing this, we stimulate a mood shift that activates an associative memory network, providing access to long term memories. Positive mood activates a range of memory networks to allow us accurate recall of the past, whereas low mood tends to leave us only remembering the negative memories, so it is worth using music to modulate mood to improve various cognitive functions. The second technique, MPC, uses music listening, musical role-playing, expressive improvisation, singing, and composition to increase self-awareness, identity, and confidence.

So, what did they find?

Comparing participants who attended Cognitive Rehabilitation with those who also attended Neurologic Music Therapy, the group who participated in music returned significantly higher scores in their emotional competencies, including evaluating, expressing and tending to their own and others’ emotions. This group also returned higher scores for levels of motivation.

By stimulating long-held memory networks, music therapy was able to improve cognitive outputs in attention control, long-term memory storage, retrieval of verbal inputs, and delayed recall of visual-spatial information.

“our results showed that music may help to organize therapeutic experiences according to the affective and motivational values for the individual, and could lead to re-thinking personal problems, changing perception of others, learning new coping skills, processing significant life experiences, dealing with fears and setting new goals.”

This article is available for free via an open access journal: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7004652/pdf/medi-99-e18866.pdf

Reference:

Impellizzeri, F., Leonardi, S., Latella, D., Maggio, M. G., Foti Cuzzola, M., Russo, M., Sessa, E., Bramanti, P., De Luca, R., & Calabrò, R. S. (2020). An integrative cognitive rehabilitation using neurologic music therapy in multiple sclerosis: A pilot study. Medicine (Baltimore), 99(4), e18866–e18866. https://doi.org/10.1097/MD.0000000000018866