Effects of Different Musical Wave Types on the EEG: A Pilot Case Study

Music therapy is a newly developed clinical technique in occupational therapy. Music therapy is defined by the Canadian Association for Music Therapy as "...the planned use of music to achieve therapeutic aims with people who have special needs because of social, emotional, physical or intellectualproblems".Manyoccupationaltherapists and nursing professionals have suggested applying music to the medical treatment arena and have endorsed the therapeutic effects and experiences with research data. Based on the results of research by foreign scholars, music therapy has been scientifically proved to have therapeutic effects on people undergoing rehabilitation due to brain damage. Previously, researchers thought thatmusical stimuli might be transmitted to the cerebral cortex though the optic thalamus. As the optic thalamus controls human emotions, musical stimuli received by the optic thalamus improves the function of appeasing or exciting emotions. Some scholars found that when a patient listened to hi/her favorite music, the secretion of -endorphins was increased, and that his/her pain was relieved or even that he/she experienced a joyful feeling. Some scholars believe thatWestern classicalmusic is helpful in increasing a listener's -brainwaves and thus helps the listener relax. Such research is valuable evidence of the clinical utility of music therapy. According to a research report entitled "Tone color of music and inappropriate behavior of schizophrenia" published in 2003 by Shih, an Effects of Different Musical Wave Types on the EEG: A Pilot Case Study