A brain bleed caused by a haemorrhagic stroke can have catastrophic effects on a person’s physical and mental health.
Such an acquired brain injury can impair movement, speech, cognitive function and more. The effects further impact mental health causing emotional distress and depression.
Living with an acquired brain injury such as this type of stroke requires an effective, comprehensive rehabilitation plan to achieve the best possible outcome for the patient.
In such cases, Chroma therapists become part of a multidisciplinary team (MDT) with the aim of helping deliver the type of rehab the patient needs, in order to improve their quality of life.
When Chroma qualified Neurologic Music Therapists deliver NMT sessions to haemorrhagic stroke patients, they begin with sound warm ups – whereby the patient/client sings different sounds up and down the scale and using different rhythms.
Or it could be the therapist on a keyboard plays a chord and asks the client to say a word – when the chord changes, the client is asked to change the word.
These seemingly simple techniques contribute to the client’s ability to develop their speech and language capabilities.
Chroma therapists often work within an MDT in order to achieve the very best outcome for the patient. In cases like this, they will work in combination with a speech therapist.
All the work that goes into the NMT sessions is to help enhance the outcome of the speech and language therapy sessions, too.
The beauty of this technique is that therapists themselves are able to bear witness to the significant impact it has upon a patient’s speech. Neural pathways open up and patients who lost the ability to speak are then able to sing words!
These NMT techniques have demonstrated significant speech progress to the residents at Voyage Care in Bristol and Tewkesbury.
Throughout the pandemic, Chroma therapists delivered important NMT sessions to haemorrhagic stroke patients online.
In what could have been a difficult transition was actually liberating. Chroma therapists were able to be even more creative in their approach, which furthermore helped improve patient/client motivation towards rehab.
Delivering NMT online helped enhance the focus of the clients as there were less distractions, enabling them to concentrate better on the sessions.
Chroma has been able to start delivering face to face sessions, within social distancing guidelines, and continue helping haemorrhagic stroke patients once again find their voice.
