Singing can play an important role in regaining language function after stroke, as well as supporting the psychosocial wellbeing of survivors and their families, a new study has found.
Singing-based rehabilitation, particularly in a group format, can support communication and speech production of patients living with aphasia, and can also give much-needed opportunities for social interaction.
The peer support provided by such sessions were also hugely important for survivors’ families, with a “notable” decrease in the burden experienced by caregivers seen during the course of the study.
The research team, from the University of Helsinki, have highlighted this study as evidence as to why singing-based group rehabilitation should be used more widely in healthcare as part of aphasia recovery.
“Our study is the first where caregivers participated in rehabilitation and their psychological wellbeing was evaluated,” says postdoctoral researcher Sini-Tuuli Siponkoski, of the University of Helsinki.
“In addition to training in speech production, group-based rehabilitation provides an excellent opportunity for peer support both for the patients and their families.”
Around 40 per cent of stroke survivors live with aphasia, and in half of these cases the language impairment persists one year post-stroke. The impact on survivors’ lives can be profound, with adverse impact seen in terms of quality of life and social isolation.
Previous research has established that the ability to sing can be retained even in severe aphasia. However, the use of singing, especially choral singing, in aphasia rehabilitation has not been widely studied.
“Our study utilised a wide variety of singing elements, such as choral singing, melodic intonation therapy and tablet-assisted singing training,” says doctoral researcher Anni Pitkäniemi.
In addition to speech therapy, melodic intonation therapy has been used to some extent in aphasia rehabilitation. Therapy has typically been implemented as individual therapy, requiring a great deal of resources.
In melodic intonation therapy, speech production is practised gradually by utilising melody and rhythm to progress from singing towards speech production.
In the study, rehabilitation sessions were led by a trained music therapist and a trained choir conductor.
Language function and psychosocial wellbeing were found to benefit significantly, even at the chronic phase of stroke, with opportunities for peer support while remaining cost effective as an intervention.
