Singing for Stroke Survivors

Jeff Porter
Stroke of Faith

Thursday, March 05, 2015

Back years ago, I felt it one Sunday morning.

Photo by lungstruck via Flickr

I'm a longtime, hymnal-using United Methodist. So one Sunday morning several months after my stroke, during a worship service, I sang along with everyone else, standing and holding a hymnal.

And suddenly, I felt like my language skills had gained a notch. This wasn't the first time I felt that way, but it was the first time while singing.

Now, here's a more recent story from across the pond on how how stroke survivors can sing:

• One Voice was was set up in 2008 by Lorna Bickley and Katy Bennett as a community choir for people who had suffered strokes. Singing helps recovery of movement, memory, breathing, speaking - and confidence.
• The phenomenon was first documented in Sweden in the early 18th Century when a young man who couldn't speak due to brain damage amazed the congregation at his local church by loudly singing along to hymns.
• The American Stroke Association reported "the acquired language disorder now called aphasia became a subject of clinical study and a target for rehabilitation beginning in the mid-1880s".
• "Since that time, every clinician working with aphasia has seen individuals who can produce words only when singing.”

See the original article:

Singing for Stroke Survivors

in

Stroke of Faith