‘The music does wonders.’ Charleston health experts discuss how sounds help healing | Post and Courier
Local health experts are looking to take the music and healing conversation further. Dr. Jacobo Mintzer, a researcher with the Roper St. Francis Research and Innovation Center, did a TEDx talk in May about the relationship between music and healing.
He explained how they examined what happens in a musician’s brain when they play music. What they witnessed, he said, was how the musician’s brain functioned as sort of pacemaker for the music.
Mintzer said he was fascinated with the idea that this function could potentially be reversed.
“Like a pacemaker for the brain,” he said.
In their research, he said, they saw cases where music helped an individual with Parkinson’s with their walking. They also saw cases where patients who were nonverbal from dementia actually sing songs they could remember during music therapy sessions.
And he emphasized that these aren’t theories. “We know those things to be true,” he said. “If you’re skeptical, it’s very easy to stop being skeptical.”