The healing power of music

Shakespeare suggested music is the food of love but at Cayman Echoic, music seems to be food for the brain. 

Cayman Echoic Services and Translations is a recently opened business that uses a classical music-based therapy on children and adults with learning difficulties, attention disorders and concentration issues. 

According to Gloria Powery, a therapist at the centre, using psychoacoustically modified music techniques can help a child or adult improve concentration, coordination, balance, hand-eye coordination and focus. 

She describes the approach as “physiotherapy for the brain”. 

One of the first patients at the centre was Ms Powery’s own grandson, Gabriel, now 6. When the little boy was 18 months, his family noticed his speech development began to delay. As he grew older, his attention span became very short and he was hyperactive. 

At 2, he began speech therapy to try to improve his language and visited a speech therapist three times a week for a year, but made little progress, Ms Powery said. As he prepared to start school, he was examined by an audiologist and paediatric ear, nose and throat specialist, who diagnosed him with titis media with effusion, a condition that had delayed his speech development because the child could not hear properly. 

Two options were available to Gabriel – a surgical procedure that involved inserted a small tube into the eardrum to keep the middle ear aerated for a prolonged periods of time, thus preventing the accumulation of mucus in the middle ear or using antibiotics. His family chose antibiotics, which gave some results. 

His grandmother, Ms Powery, who also works as a teacher for the programme for the visually impaired at the Department of Education Services, set about trying to find a better long-term solution. On the Internet, she came across a therapy that uses classical music, predominantly by Mozart.  

“We got fully involved in the programme and became certified providers of these sort of therapies,” Ms Powery said.  

She said the therapy proved life changing for Gabriel, who can now read and is a good student. 

“I thought, if it works for Gabriel, it will work for others,” she said. 

The system is a simple one – headphones are placed over a person’s ears, through which music is played from a small handheld MP3-type player. But these are no ordinary headphones – they allow users to hear through the ears, but also to “hear” through their bones, Ms Powery said.  

The centre of the band that goes over the wearer’s head contains a speaker through which the music is also played and the vibrations can be felt on the skull. This is known as bone conduction. 

The centre, which is based in the upper floor of the Jetik Building on Walkers Road, uses two version of the music therapy systems – The Listening Programme, or TLP, and the Tomatis system. 

Ms Powery said the system is not just for children with problems like autism, attention deficit disorder or hyperactivity, but can also help adults improve their memory and concentration power and can be used to combat depression and stress. 

Ms Powery said she is offering to help local children who need help but whose families cannot afford it, but also wants to attract paying clients as well.