Music is an integral part of people's lives all over the world. It is well known as a universal language, easy for children and adults to understand and one with inherent abilities to stimulate the mind, body and emotions.

These characteristics that music possesses have also been used throughout history by medical and health professionals.

The therapeutic qualities of music were discussed as early as the time of Plato and Aristotle.

Throughout both World Wars, doctors and nurses used the beneficial properties of music on patients suffering physical and emotional traumas. This led to the modern incarnation of the music therapy field.

Music therapy, according to the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA), is a well-established health profession similar to occupational therapy and physical therapy, that uses music to therapeutically address physical, psychological, cognitive, behavioral and social functioning.

"Music therapy is used to bring about changes within an individual and bring about personal growth," said Susan Shuttleworth, professor of music therapy and coordinator of the Music Degree Program at Slippery Rock University.

She said music therapists work in a variety of settings, including physical rehabilitation centers, psychiatric facilities, prisons, nursing homes, school systems for special-needs students and general hospitals.

Music therapy has been effectively used by professionals to treat people with a myriad of health problems ranging from physical disabilities, mental health disorders, chronic pain, cancer, substance abuse problems, AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, brain injuries, and learning disabilities.

While Penn State does not offer a degree program in music therapy, there is an interest in the interrelationships between music, arts and health.

In November 2001, Penn State launched the Arts and Health Outreach Initiative (AHOI) said Ermyn F. King, AHOI coordinator.

"The AHOI is a three-year interdisciplinary partnership-based pilot currently supported by four principal Penn State partners: the College of Arts and Architecture, the College of Health and Human Development, the College of Medicine and the Outreach Cooperative Extension," King said.

Janice W. Stouffer, a music therapist in the Department of Pediatric Rehabilitation at the Hershey Medical Center working with the AHOI, is concluding a study measuring the effects of music alone and music with a parents' voice on the sedation level of children on mechanical ventilation.

Stouffer said parents were interviewed to find what music was calming to the child. Once music was chosen, changes were made to "smooth out the music."

The tempos were adjusted to 60 beats per minute, the melody was kept more consistent and simple instruments such as guitars and keyboards were used to make the music more sedative, Stouffer said.

Three tapes were then made. One contained the music alone, the second the music with a parent's voice dubbed over the music, and the third was a control tape of silence.

The nurses who played the tapes did not know which tape was being played.

Some key measurements were then taken from the children, who ranged from eight months to 3 years old.

Heart rate, blood pressure, level of sedation and any significant behaviors were monitored while each tape was played.

The preliminary results indicated that music with a parent's voice overdubbed had significant results in lowering blood pressure and calming the child, while music alone showed some good trends, but did not achieve anything of statistical significance, Stouffer said.

Cheryl Dellasega, associate professor in the College of Medicine and Department of Humanities and a member of the AHOI advisory board, is responsible for stimulating focused development of arts-in-medicine initiatives at the medical center.

She said other research has proven music to be effective therapy for growth in newborn children, enhancing sleep patterns in patients, raising pain thresholds for patients with problems such as chronic back pain and lowering anxiety in surgery patients.

Dellasega has been invited to speak in April, at the Society for the Arts in Healthcare national conference in San Diego, which she said will focus on new scientific research in this burgeoning field.

The rise in complementary and alternative medicine treatments in the United States has increased dramatically throughout the 1990s.

Combined with traditional Western medical practices, it is referred to as integrative medicine, and music therapy seems to have a bright future in this type of setting.

"The field is expanding as a whole," Stouffer said.

She said participating in music is a normal thing for people to do, and they are turning to alternative and integrated medical practices for treatment now that there is solid supporting research to prove it's effectiveness.

"Music therapy being coordinated with other services is very important," Stouffer said.

It must have consistency from setting-to-setting, or it loses the long-term effectiveness.

Dellasega said alternative therapies work well for some, but don't apply to everyone.

"The hope with integrated medicine is that the least invasive medical practices will be the first to be tried," she said.

Since music therapy and other alternative therapies are non-invasive and non-pharmaceutical, they are very safe treatments for patients because no surgery is performed and no drugs are administered, which eliminates the possibility of negative side effects from drugs, Dellasega said.

Dellasega, Stouffer and Shuttleworth all emphasized that music therapy is not just a passive listening technique, and works more effectively when using hands-on forms, such as making music, singing and composing.

"Active techniques are used much more frequently by music therapists," Shuttleworth said.

The positive therapeutic attributes of music lie in the emotional and neurological aspects people have with music, Shuttleworth said.

"The associations we form with songs and music stay with us throughout life, and that plugs into the emotional responses we have," she said.

The sounds, vibrations, and rhythms of music create a whole-brain, and even a whole-body experience that is effective in treating neuralgic disorders as well as physical disorders, Stouffer said, adding music helps stimulate the brain to be more active in sending electrical messages to the muscles and limbs in people with brain injuries and developmental disorders.

"The physiological properties of music like sound, vibrations and rhythm activate the body, mind and emotions," Stouffer said.

"Everybody has self-medicated with music at some time."