4. Stroke Rehabilitation

In this episode, psychologist and author Philippa Perry meets Ellie Ruddock who has trained in neurologic music therapy and specialises working with stroke victims, enabling her clients to relearn and retrain their brains to absorb new information. She explains to Philippa how the rhythmic power of music can facilitate physical recovery, particularly in learning to walk again.

Ellie helps Philippa encode some new information herself, using music therapy and they discuss music’s unique ability to bypass the parts of the brain that are damaged and forge new neural pathways in rehabilitation therapy. Recent discoveries in neuroscience are now catching up with what humans have known for centuries – that music occupies more parts of our brains than language does, and that it can calm, organize and heal.

The neurologist Oliver Sachs said: "The power of music to integrate and cure is quite fundamental. It is the profoundest non-chemical medication." This programme focuses on music’s extraordinary ability to heal.