Chitra Jeba and Deepak Joshi
Background and Purpose: Spasticity is a common impairment in hemiplegia arising in about 90% of the patients, which leads to various direct or indirect secondary impairments. Various studies have shown the association between depression, spasticity and quality of life in hemiplegic patients. Music therapy yet not very popular in physical therapy practice but evidences suggest its influence on different determinants of health viz. depression, anxiety, blood pressure and heart rate. Hence this study was conducted in attempt to study the effects of music therapy on spasticity, functional independence and quality of life in hemiplegic subjects.
Methods: 20 subjects with hemiplegia were enrolled in a 3 days randomized controlled trial. They were randomly allocated into (1) Experimental group, receiving music therapy and conventional treatment or (2) Control group, receiving only conventional treatment. Both the groups received treatment for 3 days (a session per day). Outcome measures were primarily spasticity and secondarily functional independence and quality of life.
Results: Participants in both the groups showed significant (P<0.05) reduction in the level of spasticity in all the group of muscles. There was significant (P<0.05) improvement in Functional Independence Measure and Stroke Specific Quality Of Life scores in both the groups. None of the variables yielded significant (P<0.05) difference when compared between the groups.
Discussion and Conclusions: Taken together, the statistical and clinical impressions point to the mild complementary effects of music therapy on spasticity and subsequently on functional independence and quality of life.
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