© Agence France-PresseA computer image mapping parts of the brain. US scientists have restored speech to stroke victims by getting them to sing words instead of speaking them, a leading neurologist said here Saturday.
San Diego, California - US scientists have restored speech to stroke victims by getting them to sing words instead of speaking them, a leading neurologist said.
Gottfried Schlaug, an associate professor of neurology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, showed a video of a patient with a stroke lesion on the left side of the brain who was asked to recite the words of a birthday song.
The patient could not comply, and merely repeated the letters N and O.
But when Schlaug asked him to sing the song while someone held the patient's left hand and tapped it rhythmically, the words "happy birthday to you" came out clear as day.
"This patient has meaningless utterances when we ask him to say the words but as soon as we asked him to sing, he was able to speak the words," Schlaug told reporters at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Another patient was taught to say, "I am thirsty" by singing, while another who suffered a large lesion on the left side of the brain and had tried various, ultimately unsuccessful therapies for several years to try to regain the power of speech was taught to say his address.
Images of the brains of patients with stroke lesions on the left side of the brain -- which is typically used more for speech -- show "functional and structural changes" on the right side of the brain after they have undergone this form of therapy through song, called Music Intonation Therapy (MIT).