Music gives stroke victims ability to speak

For the many stroke victims devastated by the loss of their ability to speak, music may hold the key to unlocking language, according to a new study.

In the study, patients who were taught to essentially sing their words improved their verbal abilities and maintained the improvement for up to a month after the end of the therapy, according to Gottfried Schlaug, a neurology professor at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School.

The patients may continue to speak in a more “sing-songy” way than a person with normal speech, but they are able to say functional phrases, such as that they are thirsty or where they live, according to Dr. Schlaug, whose work was met with enthusiastic applause after his presentation.

The research, presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science here Saturday, produced often dramatic results in 12 patients whose speech was impaired after a stroke to the left hemisphere of the brain. Such patients struggle to communicate or cannot speak at all.