The Relationship Between Epilepsy And Music

While music has yet to be fully exploited clinically, Levitin says we routinely take advantage of its effects on our brain. "Many people use music to regulate their mood throughout the day. We use music to create a soundtrack to our lives," he

Music has been apart of society for thousands of years and an outlet for people's stress and other problems they may be facing. It helps the brain function and understand conditions better by breaking it down and trying to comprehend it. Music has made and is still making an impact on the lives of people all around the world. Because of its impact on peoples lives neuroscientist wanted to get to the source and have been looking at the brain to determine the exact effects of music and they can now answer the question, what effects does music have on the brain? Listening to music can send pleasure to your mind, decide your emotions, lower stress, and improve learning.

People uneducated about Epilepsy may have confused thoughts on what it really is. People have these "notions," which are partly or entirely not true. So, throughout this research paper, these notions will be proven untrue, mostly by factual information given by

Did you know that music is one of the few activities that utilizes the whole entire brain? Did you know that music can physically alter your brain structure? Today I am going to be talking about the power of music and its impacts and effects on the brain. Throughout my whole life I have always had a passion for music of all different types and genres. I listen to music wherever I go and during whatever I’m doing. My mom would continually badger me about the music I was listening to and how it was corrupting my brain. After much research and many songs later, I discovered it actually has many positive effects on the brain. In the rest

Seizures stimulated by thinking of music also supported this theory since there is recruitment of musical memory and its associated emotion (Maguire, 2012). Mrs. O’C is a good example of this. Mrs. O’C only had seizures when thinking about her childhood in Ireland and the specific Irish songs she would sing and dance to. Orphaned at five years old, Mrs. O’C moved to America to live with family. These Irish songs caused her to be flooded with memories of her time in Ireland when her mother and father were both alive, a time she had hardly remembered before these musical seizures began (Sacks, 1970). It is also interesting to consider Mrs. O’M’s case when thinking about emotional connections. Mrs. O’M reported no emotional connection to the songs she was hearing, however had been humming them before the seizures began. This seems to indicate that there was some type of emotional connection and that is probably why those specific songs were what played on repeat in her head every time she had a seizure (Sacks, 1970).

People with dementia, Parkinson’s and other diseases that have brain damage chemistry also reconnect to the world and gain improved quality of life from listening to music that can trigger memories from important parts of their lives

Epilepsy is a very common disorder and the international researches and surveys shows that 1 adult from 200 people suffers by epilepsy. There are several forms of epilepsy and every form causes another epileptic attack. Epilepsy is spread world wide, but it is a fact that this disorder is not well understood. Epilepsy strikes whomever at any age and it is not true, as many sources indicates, that epilepsy strikes children only. This disorder can not be genetically caught from a family member and you can not catch it from somebody. Epilepsy does not limit a person’s ability and the person with epilepsy can lead normal and happy live.

Epilepsy is a relatively common neurological condition which disrupts the electrical activity of the brain and causes sudden, recurrent seizures. Partial seizures are the most common, and occur on only one side of the brain rather than travelling across the corpus callosum into the other hemisphere. These partial seizures generally originate in the temporal lobe, an important area for memory, language, and auditory/sensory processing. In a group of epilepsy conditions known as reflex epilepsies, seizures can be triggered by several different stimuli. Musicogenic epilepsy is a rare type of reflexive epilepsy in which patients experience seizures after listening, thinking, or dreaming about music. In a 2008 study some patients reported seizures

Epilepsy is a general term for any brain disorder that causes unpredictable regular seizures. These seizures as caused by a disturbance in the brain’s electrical activity. It is considered a chronic neurological disorder, the fourth most common in the world. There were around 3.4 million people reported as having epilepsy in the United States in 2015 with 470,000 of those being children (CDC, 2017). This is about 1.2% of the population in the United States (CDC, 2017). There are about 50 million people who experience epilepsy globally (WHO, 2017). In the District of Columbia there are about 7,500 cases of active epilepsy. It’s estimated that 2.4 million people per year are diagnosed with epilepsy globally (WHO, 2017).

According to Lewis, Dirksen, Heitkemper and Bucher, in the United States, it is estimated that more than 3 million people have active epilepsy, with 200,000 new cases diagnosed each year (2014, p. 1419). This is why it is an important disease to understand. According to Lewis et

Epilepsy, also called seizure disorder, chronic brain disorder that briefly interrupts the normal electrical activity of the brain to cause seizures, characterized by a variety of symptoms including uncontrolled movements of the body, disorientation or confusion, sudden fear, or loss of consciousness. Epilepsy may result from a head injury, stroke, brain tumor, lead poisoning, genetic conditions, or severe infections like meningitis or encephalitis. In over 70 percent of cases no cause for epilepsy were identified. About 1 percent of the world population, or over 2 million people, are diagnosed with epilepsy.

The mind is greatly impacted by music by showing healthful changes (www.bellaonline.com/articles/). Doctors now use music for their patients’ treatments in order to help them stay healthy (www.bellaonline.com/articles/). Heart patients acquired the same benefits from listening to classical music for thirty minutes as they did from anti-anxiety medication (www.bellaonline.com/articles/). Musical therapy has been used to help people with heart problems, which worked quite effectively. (www.bellaonline.com/articles/). People who have had migraines frequently, were trained to use music and relaxing procedures to reduce their headaches. Studies have also shown that music helps students with their intelligence levels (www.bellaonline.com/articles/). A majority of students had higher test scores than others because they listened to Mozart before their exam. People who listened to classical music for an hour and a half while revising manuscripts increased their accuracy by 21% (www.bellaonline.com/articles) (Mish 725.).

Epilepsy is a condition in which a person has two or more seizures affecting a variety of mental and physical functions. Epilepsy is one of the oldest conditions of the human race. Epilepsy Awareness is important because Epilepsy is a widely misunderstood disorder. The reason that Epilepsy has been misunderstood has been mainly due to research not being conducted until the middle of the nineteenth century. There are six main types of seizures and many treatments that can assist an epileptic patient. Many facts and myths exist about a person who has Epilepsy, which, is why it is an important disorder to understand. A person living with Epilepsy can typically have a normal life after seeking medical advice from doctors.

Keywords: Mozart Effect, spatial skill performance, memory, music, neurons, neural pathways, brain, rats, and epilepsy

Aside from emotions, music can also have an impact on mental illnesses like ADHD, depression, and dementia. To combat depression, Cadena states that “music therapy alleviates pain and promotes calmness by slowing the heart rate and other bodily functions” (2). It provides the patient with a means of escape from the stressful and painful ordeals of life, and can even encourage them to recover from depression. To help children with ADHD, music therapy and medications can be used conjointly. Music, Cadena affirms, “can provide a calming, sedative affect and assist a child with focusing on the task at hand” (2). In regards to dementia, a study was done to investigate the effects that music would have on people with the disease. The findings demonstrated that “mean agitation levels were significantly lower while listening to music than before listening to the music” (3).