Celebrating music therapy neuro rehab success
BCHC colleagues and partners gathered to celebrate the success of an innovative pilot using music therapy as part of neurological rehabilitation.
The Moor Green Brain Injury service at Moseley Hall Hospital worked in partnership with Chiltern Music Therapy to deliver a 36-week Neurologic Music Therapy (NMT) pilot designed to support clients in their rehabilitation journey following a brain injury.
Thanks to an established close relationship with Chiltern, Moor Green colleagues had the opportunity to hold a celebration event at the Birmingham city centre offices of leading law firm Irwin Mitchell, which has wide experience in representing clients with brain injury in personal injury claims.
Attendees heard how clients benefited from both group sessions and one-to-one therapy and speech and language therapist Louise Lander said Moor Green has gathered evidence to support a pathway towards a fully funded programme as part of their holistic rehabilitation service:
“We’ve run a range of successful music-based therapeutic activities for many years without ever being able to fully resource it. For this pilot, we received funding for one day a week of music therapy for 36 weeks that enabled us to partner with Chiltern,” she said.
“During that eight months, a very strong partnership has been forged between Moor Green and Chiltern and we were able to successfully integrate music therapy into our therapeutic programme for our clients.
“So, we’re very grateful to Irwin Mitchell for their generosity in hosting an opportunity to celebrate and reflect on what we’ve achieved.
“The results have been very encouraging and support our aspiration is to have music therapy as a permanent offer within our service.”
Music therapist Elizabeth Nightingale, of Chiltern Music Therapy, added: “ It’s important to highlight that the therapeutic benefits of Neurologic Music Therapy are not restricted to clients with a brain injury but also non-brain injury too, such as spinal cord injury and amputees.
“ Once somebody is referred for NMT, their therapist will identify what relevant techniques to explore as part of their treatment, and work alongside the client, their multidisciplinary team and family, as part of an integrated collaborative approach.”
Elizabeth explained how NMT is a system of techniques focused on using music to work on non-musical goals like speech intelligibility, coordination, and attention skills. Therapists establish a set of therapeutic exercise structures to help each client work towards their rehabilitation goals in a fun and engaging way.
Active musical tasks are integrated into this approach, for example using strategic positioning of instruments to stimulate functional movement patterns and the use of rhythm as a facilitating stimulus to achieve more functional gait patterns.
Measurable outcomes have included improved finger dexterity, motion and upper limb strength; better respiration; and better mood and recall through singing.
Irwin Mitchell partner Lindsay Tomlinson said: “It was a pleasure to host this event and hear first-hand about the success of the pilot and the innovative work being done at the Moor Green brain injury service.
“We look forward to working with BCHC Charity going forward to look at how we can support patients further.”