Many of us know of music therapy as a way to soothe the troubled and stressed or to activate memories of favorite songs embedded deeply in the minds of people with dementia.
For her exercise classes in the nursing home at Paul’s Run, a retirement community in Northeast Philadelphia, music therapist Molly Bybee taps the emotional power of music. But she also uses techniques from a newer and less-known approach called neurologic music therapy (NMT) to encourage more and better coordinated movement in participants who have memory problems and use wheelchairs.
Neurologic music therapy employs changes in rhythm, pitch and volume to cue movement. It was used to help former…
