Music therapy teaches patients how to walk, talk again at Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital – MLive.com

August 7, 2023

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – The third floor of Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital is filled with Disney songs like “Let It Go” and “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” every Thursday afternoon: 7-year-old Bella Lata’s song requests for her therapy session.

To the beat of a metronome and an acoustic guitar, Lata is learning to walk again with the help of music to time out her steps. With a team of three music therapists, one playing the guitar, one keeping time and another rolling on a chair in front of her to guide Lata’s walking, she decided today was the day she didn’t want to use her walker.

Music therapy is the use of music to help individuals reach non-musical goals. By playing instruments, singing or listening to music, patients with brain injuries engage in speech therapy, occupational therapy or physical therapy.

To the tune of “How Far I’ll Go” from “Moana,” Lata walks for the first time in months on Thursday, Aug. 3, without her walker, just holding onto the hand railing for support.

Lata’s grandmother and primary caretaker, Michelle Lata, breaks down in tears.

“It is amazing how she’s doing,” Michelle said.

Bella suffers from a condition called encephalitis, which is the inflammation of the brain. On May 31, Bella wasn’t feeling well. Michelle woke her up for dinner, but Bella wasn’t walking right, bumping into walls and seemed like she was “out in space.”

Michelle took her to the hospital right away. Bella was at the Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital for three weeks for blood plasma treatments, finally starting to smile and laugh again, a slight improvement. On June 22, she was moved to Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital.

Michelle said that nothing has made Bella happy in the last few months like music therapy has.

“She loves music,” Michelle said. “She likes to go play the piano and she tries to sing. She likes to beat on the instruments and she likes to dance, so when she can for a minute, she tries to dance and wiggle around. She loves it.

“We do music at home. We do a lot of playing music and we do a lot of dancing with all of us together. That’s what she misses.”

When Bailey Schutz, Bella’s music therapist, first met her 40 days ago, Bella was nonverbal. But as Schultz has continued therapy sessions where they play music to get her to sing or dance along, she has seen extreme improvement from the first day: first humming, forming vowels with her mouth and just last week, playing the kazoo.

Schultz said Bella started physical therapy in a traditional fashion, but the staff quickly learned she responded better with the music, shifting their focus of the music therapy to physical goals.

“We’re using the rhythm of music and how our bodies and brains naturally are synchronized to that beat, to try to help her get a better cadence with her steps, get bigger steps and just keep her motivated so that she can go a further distance,” Schultz said.

Throughout Bella’s therapy session, her physical therapist, Carly Harvey, asked her multiple times if she needed a break, and most times the answer was no, wanting to keep in step with her favorite songs for as long as she could.

“Her eyes have gotten brighter blue since she has gotten better,” Michelle said. “She just lights up when the (therapists) walk in. She just loves it.”

Bella is scheduled to leave the hospital on August 23.

Music therapy has been in hospitals since the 1950s, researching since then the effects of music on the brain, memory, visual, coordination and language skills all affected by music, as well as emotional responses.

Pete Muszkiewicz, another music therapist at the hospital, said music therapy is about meeting someone where they’re at even if it’s just pressing one button on a keyboard, and celebrating what a patient can do that brings them joy rather than focusing on things that are difficult for patients to do.

Muszkiewicz said music is a “whole brain activity,” allowing music therapists to find something intact about their functioning that otherwise might be tough to access without the use of playing a guitar or hitting a drum.

Muszkiewicz said he does this job because of the little moments of success like seeing a glint in one of his patient’s eyes when Muszkiewicz played their favorite song during therapy without knowing, getting him to sing during a walking rehabilitation.

“It is just such a great marriage of functional and aesthetic,” Muszkiewicz said. “The music was doing the job of walking rehabilitation, but it also connected with him on a personal level. Afterwards, he was like a little misty-eyed.”

Muszkiewicz also teaches a cardio drumming class at the hospital, teaching people with all different circumstances and illnesses how to stretch the limits of their coordination and get their hands and brains to work to the beat of the music.

The little victories when he can tell his class to give themselves a round of applause after a 30 minute class is what fuels Muszkiewicz, getting into the field because he wanted to use what he loved, music, to better the community around him.

“Most of the time you show up to your job, and you do the best you can and hope it makes an impact,” he said.

Muszkiewicz said music can serve people at Mary Free Bed in a more direct way than entertainment, with the additional moments of physical healing.

“Music is such a relative novelty,” Muszkiewicz said. “Even if it’s used in a therapeutic way, people don’t expect somebody with a guitar case to be having a name badge in a hospital. I think people are just pleasantly surprised by that medium being offered here, just because so many people like music. Whether or not they have training or experience, as long as they respond to it and they like it, we can work with that.”

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