b'When I joined AIM shown in the comments made by participantsat UF Health, then called in Whitneys dance classes, i.e. I feel so muchShands, nearly 30 years better now than I did before! And, like inago, I quickly became dance, the tempo and rhythm of music canthe first musician in serve to help produce the desired outcome byresidence. The only other either energizing or relaxing the listener. Ivemusicians were guest used music in the hospital to help someoneperformers who came get to sleep by reducing their anxiety, and forvery occasionally to do getting the patient to walk during their physicalmusic, dance, and other performances in the therapy treatment by playing a favorite songlobby. And one thing I noticed right away was with a familiar beat.that there was no piano. Being a pianist My studies led me to the work of Oliver Sacks,myself, I went about remedying this ASAP, a neurologist/musicologist who is the authorwriting a grant with the help of our director, of Musicophilia, Awakenings, and several otherDr. John Graham Pole, and the head of books.His workinspiredtheorganizationPediatrics, Rick Bucarrelli, to the Childrens which is now called musicandmemory.org,MiracleNetworkorganization, whokindly and the documentary Alive Inside. This lmpaid for AIMs rst grand piano. is moving, inspiring and well worth watching.In addition to playing in the lobby, screening I became very involved in this work, focusingand recruiting piano players, I started going more on older populations and people withto various units in the hospital and playing memory disorders. The eect of music onfor patients at the bedside. I would also bring this population is usually immediate, oftenin other musicians to do concerts with me in tangible, always surprising. Even Dr. Sacksthe hallways on special units such as pediatric himself,afteraskiingaccident,usedtheoncology, cardiology, and the Bone Marrow music of Beethoven to teach himself how toTransplant Unit. Intuition guided my work walk again. One of the most amazing aspectsquite a bit, and still does. I didnt really know of this story of Dr. Sacks own experience isthat much about what I was doingnone of that it got to the point where he did not haveus did, at that pointbut I quickly started to actually to play the music of Beethoven tolearning,soIcouldcomeupwithsome get its therapeutic eect on his relearning toguidelines and information for my volunteer walk; he could just think of the music and itand guest musicians.would have the same eect. My research quickly showed that, even Research has shown that music aects thethough I was not a trained music therapist, entire brain. If you look at a picture of the brainthe music my cohorts and I were bringing when music is being played, you will seeinto this setting often had very therapeutic dierent areas of the brain lighting up andeects, both psychological and physiological. popping o like popcornthe prefrontal cortex,Some of the psychological benets of music motor cortex, corpus, especially the amygdalaincluded distraction (from depression or (which hosts emotional memories), and theillness), relaxation, memory enhancement, hippocampus (home of music memories,and emotional release. The physical eects experiences and context). Thus, as reportedcould include lowering blood pressure, by the Mayo Clinic, Singing and listeningrelieving stress, improving respiration and can have emotional and behavioral benetsreducing heart rate. Many of these eects are for people with dementia and Alzheimers.msfocusmagazine.org 14'