Music just became a little more powerful.
There’s nothing more soulful nor satisfying than singing around a campfire with friends whilst the (most) talented musician among you strums your favourite tune.
For those with severe spinal injuries, recreating the above scene could have far-reaching benefits that can aid them in their recovery.
“We often get referrals for patients who, after their injury, struggle with their breathing. In addition to not being able to use their arms and legs, their injuries can affect their ability to use some of the main muscles that we all use when we breathe,” music therapist Dr Jeanette Tamplin told The Huffington Post Australia.
Tamplin has been working in neurorehabilitation with spinal injury patients for 10 years.
There are so many potential applications of it from a health and therapy perspective. We’d be crazy not to consider how to harness that.
She is leading a team of researchers at the University of Melbourne who are aiming to bring quadriplegic patients together for therapy sessions in a virtual settings.
The aim? To help them to breathe easy.
“We use breathing exercises, vocal exercises and singing to help rehabilitate their ability to control their breath,” Tamplin said.
“We performed a clinical trial that compared patients who sung with those who got together in music groups and talked about music, finding an improvement in those who were singing.”
But accessibility became an obstacle in Tamplin’s research. Enter virtual reality.
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Source: Huffington Post