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Beek on being MUSICALLY MINDED · Beek on being

• 0:00
  Melissa Shere Beek: Hi, I hope you are well. This podcast is a place for people to share personal and professional perspectives, talk openly and ask questions. From serious to silly to sublime, it's all about communication and connection. Always coming from a place of kindness and curiosity, we talk about shared humanity, discuss ideas, and highlight people creating a better world. We've got to keep learning, keep growing, keep being.
• 0:26
  I'm Melissa Beek, and this is Beek on Being. Hi, everyone. Today's episode is Beek on Being Musically Minded. I have been eagerly anticipating this episode. I am fascinated with the connection of music and the brain.
• 0:42
  In 1999, my father suffered a brain injury that left him comatose for a month. And though a year later he was able to learn to walk and talk and eat and do everything again independently, there was a time just after coming out of a coma that he was dealing with aphasia, an imperatibility to speak and communicate properly. I found the best way to communicate and connect with him was through music. I just thought of the deep love of music that my father and I shared was of benefit to him and his recovery. Music is a cerebral stimulant.
• 1:14
  Evidence shows music has the ability to alter our mood, ease our pain, both mental and physical, as well as helping us emotionally, being able to de stress, communicate, and create. At the time, I had no idea about music therapy and the cognitive and emotional benefits of it. So today is all about music therapy. We are talking to two brilliant women about the effects of music therapy on people with brain injury or dementia. So please introduce yourselves and let our listeners know a little bit about you and what you do professionally.
• 1:49
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Thank you, Melissa. And thank you for your story about your dad. Maybe we can talk about that more in this episode. I'm Teresa Lesiak and I'm the chair and professor of music therapy at the Frost School of Music, University of Miami. I have been at University of Miami since 2005.
• 2:10
  I'm a pianist. I keep up my playing. I love to play. I teach several different courses. I can talk more about the education of the program, and maybe I'll just start with that.
• 2:24
  Leah Goldstein: Okay. Great. And And I'm Leah, Leah Goldstein. I am a board certified music therapist and graduate of University of Miami, where I had the pleasure of studying and learning under doctor Lesiak. And after I graduated University of Miami, I, for six years, worked in a hospice setting.
• 2:46
  And about two years ago, I opened to my own private practice. We call it Chai notes, which is a Jewish term meaning to life, 18. And now I serve not only a few hospice patients, but also dementia, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's. And it's been just wonderful, and I'm so happy to be here.
• 3:04
  Melissa Shere Beek: Oh, I'm so honored to have you both on. So would you both tell our listeners a little bit about how you got into your fields? And then tell us what exactly is music therapy?
• 3:16
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Sure. I can start. So going back actually to the eighties, I studied music in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. I'm from And I actually started teaching junior high school first before I went into music therapy. So I worked with young people.
• 3:37
  Middle school, I still really like that age. I like to do music with them. And from there, I also did a master's in education and became very interested in personalities and music. That carried me into studying music therapy at Colorado State University. And continued some of my work with personalities and stress in the workplace.
• 4:02
  I started there with that. Working doing a thesis actually on air traffic controllers.
• 4:09
  Melissa Shere Beek: Oh, stress. Talk about stress.
• 4:11
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: So speaking of that. And there, it sounds like after this, like I'm running from the law because I moved around a lot. And then I went down to San Antonio, Texas. I did a lot of contractual music therapy work with older adults, memory care, children with special needs. And I ran a program there at at which is now the University of the Incarnate Word.
• 4:37
  Wow. And from there, I went up to back up to Canada to University of Windsor and ran the program there for a number of years and also pursued my PhD in systematic musicology. Also continuing in the line of work of looking at stress and music in the workplace. So I did actually started with the workplace first.
• 4:59
  Melissa Shere Beek: Wow.
• 5:00
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: And that the PhD I did at University of Western Ontario and it was called Systematic Musicology. And then after that, I came down to University of Miami You needed to defrost. Yeah. A job invite, and I've been I've been here since.
• 5:17
  Melissa Shere Beek: I love it. I love it.
• 5:19
  Leah Goldstein: And so for me, I was born and raised a Miami girl. I actually never really had the desire to want to leave Miami. I come from a household that's kind of split between University of Miami alumni and University of Florida. Uh-uh. Mother Rivalry.
• 5:36
  Yeah. My mother and my aunt and my great aunt all attended Frost School of Music, which was really cool. And my mom is a pretty prominent figure here in the area. She's a well known Cantor rabbi. So So I kind of grew up, obviously, just around a lot of music.
• 5:54
  And for a while, I was like, maybe I'd become a cantor, but then I started to see some of the political sides of going into that kind of aspect. And I thought, okay, well, maybe I would like to go into teaching and like music education. And then I found out about University of Miami had this program. It was much smaller, I think, at the time. I think there was only like 12 of us in the Wow.
• 6:15
  It was much smaller. And I was like, okay, you know, I'm gonna apply and and see what happens. And I I got accepted. And if you had asked me then that you're gonna be working with, you know, geriatric and senior and hospice, I probably would have like laughed in your face. I was definitely leaning towards wanting to continue working with children.
• 6:33
  Mhmm. One of the incredible things at the University of Miami is each semester we had what was called a practicum where they literally put us in the field. You have to have a certain amount of hours to become board certified along with passing the exam. And I had a couple practicums working with children, which I loved. And then at the end, I was placed in hospice.
• 6:54
  And I kind of was like, oh gosh, like, I don't know if I don't know anything about it. And around the same time, my grandmother, my mother's mom passed away. So I was still very much like in this grieving and had a very heavy heart. And I went under the wing of another music therapist, Stephanie Riggs Cruz, who's just brilliant and has become a dear friend of mine. And I was just exposed to this whole world of music therapy and the end of life care and more on a comfort level.
• 7:25
  And I felt like, you know, we all come into this world with such dignity and it's such a beautiful way to welcome someone. I felt like we all deserve the same peaceful death. Especially looking at a lot of these nursing homes and how these people are confined to just four walls and no one to talk to and not even I have a just felt like they they just needed more. So that kind of led me I took an internship with Seasons Hospice, which became Accent Care, and and then I accepted a job there. And that's kind of how I went going.
• 7:57
  And I just have been blown away over the years of working with all the different populations of how incredible our brains respond in the neurological aspect with music, which has kind of led me to to where we're at today. Amazing. And can you tell our listeners what music therapy is? The exact definition is it's an evidence based practice Mhmm. That uses music as a therapeutic therapeutic medium.
• 8:26
  A lot of people say, oh, you're a music therapist. Like, what instrument do you play?
• 8:30
  Melissa Shere Beek: Right. That's right.
• 8:31
  Leah Goldstein: And we do. We play that. But we don't use it to like, I'm not an entertainer. Like, we're like, oh, the music lady's here. Using it as a tool
• 8:38
  Melissa Shere Beek: As a tool.
• 8:38
  Leah Goldstein: To provide therapy. Right. So we have goals and we have interventions neurologically, cognitive, comfort. And That's going to my great. My definition.
• 8:50
  Yeah.
• 8:50
  Melissa Shere Beek: And Doctor. Lucio, can you tell us more about your research and the studies that you've done to outline the problems of of Yeah. Cognitive impairment and all of those things?
• 9:00
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Absolutely. I I could go into some detail if you'd like about a particular team that I'm working with. Yes. And okay. Great.
• 9:08
  Melissa Shere Beek: Tell
• 9:08
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: us. So, is a there is a team that I'm working with that involves I'm it, I'm principal investigator. And Xiaoyang Soon, she's a neurologist is on the team. Roger McIntosh, she's a cognitive neuroscientist, works in the psychology department at University of Miami. Julia Repani has been part of the team.
• 9:31
  She's a music education researcher. And then a great study coordinator who I've had is Yianni Eliadez. So there's a team.
• 9:40
  Melissa Shere Beek: It's a great team.
• 9:41
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Yeah. And actually, it started with doctor Soon approached me because she diagnoses people with Alzheimer's. And she came to me and said, you know, can we get some music therapy for the patients? And we we launched it into some grants. Actually, we were funded by the doctor Emily Pierce Foundation.
• 10:00
  And I'll give you a little bit of background if you don't mind some
• 10:03
  Melissa Shere Beek: No, tell me.
• 10:04
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Some statistics. Yeah. Okay. So we really did end up focusing on mild cognitive impairment, but I'll get give a little bit of a lead up to So over the past two decades, the older population of The US has grown consistently Yeah. Reaching like close to 56,000,000 in 2020.
• 10:24
  And as that number increases, there's a growing segment of our population that live with some level of cognitive deficit. In the two out of three Americans experience a decline in their mental abilities at an average age of 70 years. Which is young. It's young. This is part of normal aging as well.
• 10:45
  So there are age related cognitive declines that are considered normal. And so they're not they're non pathological, but they do affect mental domains such as processing speed, reasoning, memory, and
• 10:59
  Melissa Shere Beek: So normal aging, nothing like disease injury or anything like that.
• 11:03
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Right. Exactly. But so amongst the different types of cognitive decline, our study focused on mild cognitive impairment, which precedes like early Alzheimer's and Alzheimer's. And so adults with mild cognitive impairment, they can participate successfully in activities of daily living, but they report problems with memory as well as other subtle forms of cognitive impairment. So, cognitive impairment affects about ten million people in The United States.
• 11:35
  And that means that about around twelve to eighteen percent of people aged 60 or older are living with gonna call Experiising. It
• 11:42
  Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 11:44
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: So and it and it can develop for a number of reasons including not getting good sleep. So, some cases, it reverts back to normal cognition. But it also precedes more severe forms of dementia. And specifically MCI that's called amnestic, which means problems with memory is what precedes Alzheimer's.
• 12:05
  Melissa Shere Beek: Okay. Is there a percentage that you have from this group of mildly impaired cognitive to the ones that will present with disease like Alzheimer's? Yes.
• 12:16
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Like Okay. That's a great question. So within just a year, about ten to fifteen percent of those people with MCI lose memory and other mental abilities in a way that does interfere with their daily life. And within about five years, a third develop Alzheimer's. Okay.
• 12:32
  Yeah. And it of course, that's a dementia that affects memory, thinking, behavior. Right. So it's estimated that there's six point seven million Americans aged 65 and older living with Alzheimer's, and that means about one in nine people aged 65 and older have Alzheimer's.
• 12:50
  Melissa Shere Beek: Have Alzheimer's. Yeah. That's a lot. That's a big number. That's a huge number.
• 12:55
  You tell us about goals that you have, both of you, goals and interventions that you have with the populations that you serve, both both from a research standpoint, but also, Leah, from from a standpoint of in practice, a private practice, including your patients with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and dementia?
• 13:10
  Leah Goldstein: Yeah. So I'll give an example. So I have one patient. She has very early onset. So she had a stroke.
• 13:17
  And she also has the beginnings of early dementia, but she's completely cognitively with it.
• 13:22
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: And
• 13:22
  Leah Goldstein: she still drives and she goes to dance and and her brain is completely there, which is very frustrating for her. Because after she had a stroke, she developed something called aphasia.
• 13:30
  Melissa Shere Beek: Mhmm.
• 13:30
  Leah Goldstein: Where her words are there and they get stuck. They just can't come out. Right. And, it's actually funny I'm bringing this up because I believe it was like orientation, Doctor. Lesiak, you gave an example of Gabrielle Griffith Gifford.
• 13:42
  Yes. And I never forgot it. The politician was shot at the left side of her brain. Sure. And she learned to speak again using music therapy.
• 13:50
  Right. And what happened is a technique, it's called MIT, Melodic Intonation Therapy. And I have like my notes here. No, tell us. Yeah.
• 13:57
  It's basically it's the left side of our brain, the left hemisphere is the side that processes speaking. Mhmm. The right side is the side of the brain that is music, rev, like melody and pitch. So the whole goal is for someone who's having trouble speaking and their left side has been damaged, is to use this really interesting technique and actually get them to to sing their words while tap doing a little bit of tapping on their left side and kind of cross those like neural pathways over time. So for her, if she wants to go to the bathroom, for example, she can't really get her words out, like I need the restroom.
• 14:34
  But what I'll do is I'll use like a very small, like intervals, two to four, you know, and I need bathroom. Right. Over again, I'll it first. I'm gonna tap and kind of get some of her motor going and wake up everything. And over time, she can sing it back incredibly.
• 14:51
  So if I ask like what she needs to do, she can't say I need the bathroom. But she will literally sing back, I need bathroom. Right. And she's like, she's floored. She can't believe it.
• 15:00
  And that's another incredible thing is the emotional aspect, especially for these people who have had these conditions where they're they're still very cognitively there. I have it with a patient with Parkinson's too.
• 15:11
  Melissa Shere Beek: And But having such difficulty in communicating.
• 15:13
  Leah Goldstein: What Yeah. Or this Parkinson's patient, he has such rigidity and severe tremors and he just he wants to still be active in everything. Yeah. He loves music. So we use the ukulele.
• 15:24
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Mhmm.
• 15:24
  Leah Goldstein: And by using the ukulele, he has something called bradykinesia, which is like a very common thing that happens with with Parkinson's. And it's like a slow movement, slow motion that our dopamine kind of goes down, I believe, with Parkinson's. So by strumming and working on like the rigidity and the muscle movements, his oxygen, sometimes it's hard for him to speak. So we do therapeutic singing and his breath control. So between that, it's like MIT and that's a different type of, of neurological music therapy.
• 15:55
  You know, the goals are just incredible. And so going back, for example, for the patient with aphasia is over time, our goal is to train her brain to use her words to sing, and then we kinda take out some of the singing and keep the rhythm going and keep the tapping going. And over time, those pathways are gonna kinda intertwine and she's gonna be able to speak better again, which is kinda what happened with Gabrielle Gifford when she was Which is really cool. That's why the brain, you know, it's one side is more isolated music, the other is like more motor, and that's the cool thing about the brain is that we can kinda intermesh certain parts. So this leads into another question I
• 16:32
  Melissa Shere Beek: have because before I start the podcast, I always do like a a beat beat to get people into like a good mood or a positive attitude going forward. Because I know that music gives off endorphins, and it has a powerful effect on our mood. But people have strong emotional connections to music. It's very personally tied to time, place, events, memories. But you you just touched on what I wanna ask, is it is it the repetitive elements of music?
• 16:57
  Is it rhythmic beats? Is it certain sounds? Are they core memories? Like, what is it about that Absolutely. That allows them, like you said, with patients with aphasia who can sing.
• 17:07
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Yeah. Why is music so tied to the brain? So, well, I guess it goes back to evolution too. Right? And that there's you're looking for patterns in the environment.
• 17:19
  Right. Because it's a survival need to to recognize what's happening in in your and your auditory sense is very important. So you're looking for patterns that you recognize as as familiar and those patterns that are might be a threat. Right.
• 17:36
  Melissa Shere Beek: Well, consistency and comfort sort of.
• 17:39
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Yeah. Yeah. Comfort and then do you is there something strange that you're not recognizing and and that, leads you to maybe a protective mode. Mhmm. All of those pattern recognitions evolve and they involve they evolve with with music as well.
• 17:56
  And in the case of the aphasia, that's really compensatory mechanism that's happening there because about to age six of our languages in the left hemisphere.
• 18:07
  Melissa Shere Beek: Mhmm.
• 18:07
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: But we process more of a pitch in the right hemisphere, but pitch is connected to speech. So when you bring back that that part of the pitch that belongs to speech, you're also bringing back the speech. So like your example of the bathroom or I want a cup of coffee and and you have this sentence that you want to say, and it's it's initiated because of that compensatory mechanism. Got it. That's part of the answer.
• 18:34
  Melissa Shere Beek: Amazing.
• 18:35
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Yeah. Certainly, I I think you're also mentioning about sort of emotional responses to music. Right. And so I can I can say a little bit more? There's so many things coming into my mind
• 18:50
  Leah Goldstein: right now.
• 18:50
  Melissa Shere Beek: I know. I have 10,000 more questions But go lay it on me.
• 18:53
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Well, okay. Even before I get to to the emotional part, I'm I'm sort of thinking about what you're saying about stroke and Parkinson's. And I've worked with Parkinson's patients actually with some piano camps and looking at improving cognition because Parkinson's is not only a you know, that there's not only motor symptoms, there's cognitive symptoms.
• 19:14
  Leah Goldstein: And
• 19:16
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: there's also speech difficulties. And I had a student who was doing actually a DMA. It's a doctor of music arts and voice performance. And he really wanted to work with Parkinson's patients. And so he did some case studies and he put together a series of nine different vocal sessions which belong to a paradigm called neurologic music therapy.
• 19:41
  Melissa Shere Beek: Okay.
• 19:42
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: And this is all based on how we perceive music or how we produce music. And when we have an understanding of that, then we know how to help a client. So in the case that Leah's talking about that MIT is once you have an understanding of how music is processed in the brain, then you know how to help at the needs of the client and what the outcomes will be. Okay.
• 20:04
  Melissa Shere Beek: So that's sort of like the psychology of music and how people process and respond to music.
• 20:09
  Leah Goldstein: Yeah. How the brain works
• 20:11
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: alongside music. So so he had these lessons and he this particular person had also been in the piano camp with me and he has some speech intelligibility problems. And so, Andrew, the student worked with this client and he did the the pretest measures looking at, you know, how much was understandable in the speech and and recorded it. Went through his nine sessions, nine weeks of lessons and, you know, breathing exercises, singing exercises, singing songs, and then recorded it at the end. And it I it absolutely gave me chills to hear his voice at the end of those sessions because I could finally hear what he actually meant
• 20:56
  Melissa Shere Beek: to sound like. Oh, wow.
• 20:58
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Yeah. It was very, very moving.
• 20:59
  Melissa Shere Beek: I was just thinking about that.
• 21:01
  Leah Goldstein: When you
• 21:01
  Melissa Shere Beek: said that, when I was listening to your oh my gosh. Yeah. That's incredible. Can you tell us more of the studies that you do, like neurochemistry research that you have in connections with music and our mood and how it affects our mood? So,
• 21:16
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: the studies there are studies that do look at neurochemistry and mood. And and actually mood responses to music are are very important for for many conditions, including like lifting the mood of people who may be experiencing depression.
• 21:33
  Leah Goldstein: Mhmm.
• 21:34
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Right? Because Which I'm
• 21:35
  Melissa Shere Beek: sure is tied into all of these Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, you know, all of it.
• 21:41
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: That's right. I mean, even if the goal is to walk better, to have better range of motion from a stroke, you know that person's also experiencing some depression
• 21:51
  Melissa Shere Beek: Of as course.
• 21:52
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: So, that has to be All connected. Addressed, right? Yeah. Yeah.
• 21:57
  Leah Goldstein: Big loss of independence.
• 21:59
  Melissa Shere Beek: Oh, sure. That's right. Devastating. Yeah. And also, again, personally, my father actually ended up having a stroke years later in the last six years of his life, he was an invalid, but he was mentally still with it.
• 22:18
  But that depression isn't just for someone who is suffering the lack of independence or the loss of mobility or cognitive or aphasia, but it's also their disappointment when they look at their loved ones and they feel that either they've let them down or they feel the guilt for the responsibility now that they 've given their loved ones for the caretaking. So, the depression and sort of cognitive impairment, I feel, go hand in hand with all of these things.
• 22:45
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Absolutely. Mean, even if you just look at mood itself, and let's say when you're really stressed, Mhmm. You don't take in as many options in your environment. Right. You become like sort of very narrow sort of focused.
• 23:01
  Mhmm. Yeah. And you're feeling And when you're feeling even just mildly happy, just mildly content, which is often the result of of music, it's usually 90% of the time it's positive. Yeah. It has an effect on the cognition so that you're able to take in more options and be more And it actually has shown to improve creative thinking.
• 23:24
  You break set more easily. Right. That's actually what I took in into the workplaces Okay. That I was looking at to see, okay, if if you have this, you've got stress, you've got positive mood effects that lead to a positive and there's a whole body of literature that looks at just positive mood, just even Right. A person smiling at you warmly and you Oh, sure.
• 23:46
  You have a response. That particular mood lift is so important. It's important for everyday, healthy adults. It's important for people experiencing depression. If you don't lift the mood a bit, it's very hard to respond to any psychotherapy.
• 24:00
  Right. And these Well,
• 24:02
  Melissa Shere Beek: you don't get results, period. Yeah. Yeah. You just You
• 24:05
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: just can't move forward.
• 24:06
  Leah Goldstein: Yeah.
• 24:06
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Yeah.
• 24:06
  Melissa Shere Beek: You're stagnant. Yeah. Yeah. Can you talk more about the neuroplasticity and the brain's ability to change, especially through music therapy with your patients?
• 24:14
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Yeah. This is definitely the goal is, you know, to have the brain to change. And there are some studies that will show how music will change the the neuroplasticity of the brain, and they'll show somebody playing a violin and in looking at the five or or playing the piano and five fingers and how it changes on the on the cortex. Like a new neural network. And a new there are networks definitely that are looked at.
• 24:45
  Some of this is, I can talk about what we're looking at right now if you'd like. Yeah. Absolutely. I am not a neurologist. No.
• 24:54
  But I'll give it a go here. So I was talking about all the statistics of the Alzheimer's. And one of the things we know is that music that's long known to a person really taps into so many different areas of the brain. So your your prefrontal cortex, the cerebellum, lower structures like the limbic system. It also allows you to it ignites what we call like the precuneus, which is area of area of the brain that basically allows you to time travel.
• 25:27
  So you go back or you go forward.
• 25:29
  Melissa Shere Beek: Oh, So tied to all the memories.
• 25:31
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Right. Which
• 25:32
  Leah Goldstein: long I saw a lot of in hospice, by the way, which I'll which I'll touch on soon.
• 25:35
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of these memories are important to people. And they can they those memories are tied to music and music is tied to the memories. So we have this associative mood and music Connection. Network.
• 25:54
  And so those that's a network, right? And most of those tend to be positive. And as we age, we actually have something called a positive effect. We tend to have a bias towards positive events and positive experiences. So we came across something called memes, which is music evoked autobiographical memories.
• 26:17
  And our study included asking people, both healthy adults and those with MCI, what are what are some of the what's some of the music? Where were you? Tell us, you know, tell us about that memory. Was it positive? How strong was it, etcetera?
• 26:36
  So we did kind of a questionnaire first.
• 26:38
  Leah Goldstein: Mhmm.
• 26:38
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: And then we put them into an fMRI.
• 26:42
  Melissa Shere Beek: So they Call listeners, tell what an fMRI is.
• 26:44
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: So that's a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine, which is going to look at the activity of the brain. So we had them listen to twelve minutes of music that was long known to them and it was very meaningful. Mhmm. And then we also
• 26:58
  Melissa Shere Beek: Something they were associated to, connected to in a positive light.
• 27:01
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: That's right. Got it. That's right. And then they had some resting states in there too, and then some non autobiographical music. And I had to really like think about that.
• 27:10
  And so I talked to somebody I used to work with and, or know from San Antonio, Texas, Don Hodges. He's done a lot with brain imaging and music. And so we picked some Tibetan tongue singing.
• 27:20
  Melissa Shere Beek: Right. Things that they're not familiar with, they wouldn't have heard had no association
• 27:23
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: That's right. That's right. That's right. It's very interesting. Some, first of all, we had I just wanna, some of what they said was so interesting.
• 27:34
  The older people tended to focus on sort of the period of their life, whereas research has shown that the younger people when they listen to music that's meaningful to them, focus more like on events or relationships. Which makes sense because they're building their They're still developing. Yeah. Yeah.
• 27:53
  Melissa Shere Beek: And the older people?
• 27:54
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: They tend to periods of life because they've gone through different periods of life.
• 27:58
  Melissa Shere Beek: More experience.
• 27:59
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: And I'm just trying to just a minute. Let me just give me a second here and see if I can find it, because it's kinda cool.
• 28:09
  Leah Goldstein: I'll chime in for a second. Yes. Yeah. For example, in in hospice work, which also is a big misconception. People are like, oh gosh, you work in hospice, you're around like the dying all day.
• 28:18
  Which is yes, when you're you are in hospice, you technically have a a terminal illness of six months or less. It doesn't mean after the next six months, the doctor is gonna come in and recertify you, and we've had I've had patients on hospice for four and five years. But oftentimes, they'd go into a an ALF or a nursing home and they're like, don't bother. She's nonverbal. Like, she has Alzheimer's.
• 28:39
  Not
• 28:39
  Melissa Shere Beek: gonna that's risk heartbreaking. Not
• 28:40
  Leah Goldstein: It's heartbreaking. And after doing some work and finding out from like the family what the person likes, you can go in there. And like you said, with the older, I you know, sometimes they can't verbalize. So you don't know exactly what. But okay, so this patient grew up in Cuba and she loved the beach and this and that.
• 28:56
  So I would start playing just bedside sometimes with the guitar, the vibrations on the bed, like a song like Guantanamera.
• 29:02
  Melissa Shere Beek: And
• 29:03
  Leah Goldstein: they would just come to life and start, you know, if they couldn't verbalize, start shaking or clapping their hands. And the caregivers would just kind of be like floored and kind of going just piggyback quickly to what you said about, you know, what happened with your father and the emotional aspect that affects other people is I found too a lot of times in sessions, if someone did have a state of consciousness or or was comatose, or I worked a lot frontline in hospice, unfortunately, during COVID, we were like
• 29:34
  Melissa Shere Beek: Oh, wow.
• 29:35
  Leah Goldstein: We were FaceTiming with the families who couldn't come in. I mean, it was horrible. But I also saw that music therapy extends a lot more than just to the client you're serving, but to the family bedside. And there's that spiritual aspect too that was just like, oh my gosh, like, and they or we'd all be, you know
• 29:52
  Melissa Shere Beek: You've lifted all of them.
• 29:54
  Leah Goldstein: You've lift all of them. And it's been a really incredible emotional aspect too that goes very far beyond just the client itself.
• 30:01
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Right. Yeah. That's reducing a lot of stress for the the parent Yes. You know, family.
• 30:07
  Melissa Shere Beek: How do you how do you
• 30:08
  Leah Goldstein: initially assess your patients? Like, how So usually, you know, it's a referral base. When I was in hospice, oftentimes when you are signed up onto a hospice agency, you automatically will get, you know, a chaplain referral music therapy. The family can say, sure, go ahead or it's if it's a hospital, you just kind of walk And, you know, you're given the demographic, the diagnosis, and you have to kind of just cater to their needs. Sometimes, like Doctor.
• 30:36
  Lesiat can tell you, you're gonna go in and say, okay, my goal today is to improve motor function or this or that. You get in there and the patient is you gotta completely change your goals and objectives. So one of the things with music therapy is gonna have to be really flexible. You never know always what you're gonna get.
• 30:53
  Melissa Shere Beek: You're on your feet.
• 30:54
  Leah Goldstein: You're on your feet.
• 30:55
  Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. Yeah. Why is it though that when some neural pathways are destroyed or disrupted by disease or injury, that the ones associated with music sort of remain intact in the brain? Mhmm.
• 31:06
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: So it's because music is so pervasive. And so some parts of the brain may have, like you say, decayed or there's death of cells. But there's other parts that ignite and and those pathways will be used. So in the case of the Alzheimer's patient who still responds to the long known music like you're talking about, Leah, There's all of those areas it's tapping into. So there there is the motor, the emotional
• 31:35
  Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
• 31:35
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: The the prefrontal cortex, the
• 31:38
  Melissa Shere Beek: And you said sound or pitches on one side of the brain as opposed to It's
• 31:42
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: not as there's they're really not if if anything, there's no kind of just distinction between left versus right. It's more network
• 31:49
  Leah Goldstein: Mhmm.
• 31:49
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Wise, but more pitch is is processed in the right. Okay. In the right.
• 31:54
  Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. So all of those things affected. Absolutely. Can you can you, Leah, talk us through what a typical music therapy session would be? I know you just said that you have to act on your feet.
• 32:06
  You have to be Population. I was just gonna say.
• 32:08
  Leah Goldstein: Get a diagnosis.
• 32:09
  Melissa Shere Beek: What is what is something that you basically start with? I know you have to be flexible depending on each day that you go in and what's but how do you begin a music therapy session?
• 32:19
  Leah Goldstein: Well, we always will do an assessment Mhmm. Seeing where this person is cognitively, if they're oriented or not, if they're in any pain, and and what the overall goal is. Like I said, you know, the incredible thing about music therapy is there's people who use music therapy in the NICU. Have friends who work in And the there's people like me who are like at someone's deathbed helping them if they're in a lot of pain just in and I go in there and I see that they're they're they're tense and they're they're facial grimacing and there's certain things that you can look for, their heart rate. Then I know, okay, I need a cater today to help bring down and slow their breathing.
• 32:55
  And I want my goal is to relax the facial grimacing. So I'm going to cater it to meditative music and Got it. Finger picking.
• 33:03
  Melissa Shere Beek: Mhmm.
• 33:03
  Leah Goldstein: Whereas, you know, someone who, you know, you go in there and they're telling you like this is the issue or the doctor's telling you like they're having trouble with this kind of cognitive issue or something, can have your goals. But I always have my goals and interventions kind of in my head like this is my plan. And, you know Right. And I always have session structure that's always gonna be like a hello song, kind of like writing a paragraph. There's like the introduction and the and then there's the body The
• 33:29
  Melissa Shere Beek: meat and the closure.
• 33:30
  Leah Goldstein: The meat and the closure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 33:32
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: You know, Leah brings such a good point. I I would like to actually talk about like the training because I think that probably a lot of the listeners don't know what goes into studying Okay. Music
• 33:43
  Melissa Shere Beek: So if someone's interested and said, wow, this is fascinating to me. Where do I begin?
• 33:47
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Right.
• 33:48
  Melissa Shere Beek: Can you tell us a little bit about Absolutely. How you train to become a music therapist?
• 33:51
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Absolutely. So anybody interested in in becoming a board certified music therapist, first, would audition to a music school. So they've got to have some music training coming in.
• 34:03
  Melissa Shere Beek: Got
• 34:03
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: it. And then, so they they're accepted by the music school, and so they do an audition on their principal instrument, be interviewed for the for the program. And really the personal qualities are having a passion for music at that point and wanting to help people.
• 34:20
  Melissa Shere Beek: I think you'd those are they'd have to. You'd have to love music and love working with populations.
• 34:25
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. In a nutshell, I'm just gonna sort of explain this in in a simple way, but let's say an undergraduate degree which would be a Bachelor of Music in Music Therapy, In our case, with minor in psychology from the Frost School of Music. So they'd have a third approximately of their music courses.
• 34:45
  So they'd have lessons, they'd have be in ensembles, they'd have their music theory, ear training in in improvisational groups, conducting music history. Let's see what I'm getting.
• 35:01
  Melissa Shere Beek: Did have to take classes on psychology too? Yeah. Mean, you're dealing with a
• 35:04
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: That's the other third. Uh-huh. There's behavioral sciences. And actually, music therapy, I really do think is partly behavioral science, physical science. It's really studying the the music stimulus and how it can be used therapeutically.
• 35:17
  So those behavioral science classes, there's many psychology classes and also including a statistics class and human biology class. Sure. And then the other third are the music therapy courses. Some of those are method classes, some theory classes, and then clinical placement. So it's a unique undergraduate degree because they are working with clients still at the undergraduate level because it's a new enough profession.
• 35:42
  Although, it was made officially as a profession, 1950 with the National Association of Music Therapy, which is now AMTA, American Music Therapy Association. And there are clinical placements. So the student is placed with different ages, different diagnosis, and and the skill development happens over, in our case, five different practicum. And they get feedback from being on-site with an on-site music therapist, like somebody might work under Leah.
• 36:18
  Leah Goldstein: Yeah. That's quite
• 36:19
  Melissa Shere Beek: a few at this point, which really to get hand on.
• 36:22
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: So Oh, yeah. Definitely. That's how you
• 36:24
  Leah Goldstein: kinda was the beauty of not all programs do that. Right. And you need clinical hours. But with I got to do, like, five different placements and see, okay, this is really what I
• 36:33
  Melissa Shere Beek: want, this is what I don't want. Right. And what you what you're connected to. Yeah.
• 36:36
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Yes. And and then at the end of all your coursework in those five placements, there's an internship that's required. And it's about a six month full time internship that can be done in the Miami area or it can be done anywhere nationally because there's a a national roster. And then they then the student sits for a board exam after they finish the internship. And once they successfully complete that, they're MTBC, which is Music Therapist Board Certified.
• 37:03
  Melissa Shere Beek: Board certified.
• 37:03
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Yeah. And they're eligible to be hired. Amazing. That's incredible. And we have also master's degree, and we have PhD as well.
• 37:11
  Melissa Shere Beek: That's incredible. Unbelievable. I'm fascinated.
• 37:15
  Leah Goldstein: Yeah. People are usually like, oh, you're a music therapist? Like, what is that? Just a couple years that like and I'm like No.
• 37:20
  Melissa Shere Beek: It's a complete dedication.
• 37:22
  Leah Goldstein: It is.
• 37:22
  Melissa Shere Beek: It is. Not a couple years.
• 37:23
  Leah Goldstein: And like she said, especially at there's like a minor in psychology. We have, like, neuroscience. Right.
• 37:29
  Melissa Shere Beek: A lot. This isn't something you step into lightly.
• 37:32
  Leah Goldstein: This is absolutely not something it is. Yeah.
• 37:34
  Melissa Shere Beek: So because we talk about Mhmm. You have to deal with so many aspects because it's not just the cognitive issues and it's not just the physical issues, but you were talking about the emotional ones, like when you come in and you have a patient and you realize that they're in severe pain. So, it's not really about learning a new communication form or anything like that that day, you're just trying to de stress them and and release the sort of mental and physical pain they're experiencing.
• 37:59
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: There there is a particular like, we have several of our alums at Nicholas Children's Hospital, for example, and several of those or at least one of them is actually assigned to procedural support. And so children who are receiving punctures or, you know, things that are hard for them, they're difficult. The music therapist comes in and really is there with the music to support the child, and the child often is able to tolerate that distress with the music therapist there. And the team will count on the music therapist being there.
• 38:34
  Melissa Shere Beek: That's amazing.
• 38:35
  Leah Goldstein: Yeah. Yeah. And then on that opposite.
• 38:38
  Melissa Shere Beek: That's a great example because when my children were little and they needed shots or something, I'm definitely not trained as music therapist or board certified, and my singing wasn't doing it for them. But, like But it's a distraction was good enough. But yeah.
• 38:50
  Leah Goldstein: Yeah. And and in bouncing off of that, like, the opposite of children, like I said, in hospice, of course, there's usually, you know, pain and especially if they're in the hospital. And I found that and you can correct my actual data. But if someone had a really, really high, you know, heart rate because they're in pain, there's something we use called the ISO principle. So you kinda meet them where they're at.
• 39:12
  If they're in severe pain, I'm not gonna come in and start strumming. So I am gonna play it loud and I'm gonna meet them where they're at. Right. And over time, I'm gonna reduce and relax my music the way I'm strumming. And you can watch on that monitor.
• 39:24
  Oftentimes, we stand there and we watch on that machine as the heart rate goes lower and lower and lower. Incredible. And I mean,
• 39:31
  Melissa Shere Beek: there's Getting that biofeedback right away like that. That's incredible. Yeah. Especially because your population must be so difficult. Maybe some of them are not even aware of their surroundings Oh, yeah.
• 39:41
  Or aware of their loved ones or even aware of themselves Yeah. With dementia.
• 39:45
  Leah Goldstein: Well, at present, even in hospice, I hate to say it, but I met a lot of extubations, which is the removal of the breathing tube. And the families always request Chaplin in music therapy. When I first started, was like, you know, why? And it is such an incredible thing. It is so powerful.
• 40:00
  Melissa Shere Beek: Oh, god. I wish I knew about you all. I know. Well, that's what
• 40:03
  Leah Goldstein: is just so much awareness that really needs to be.
• 40:06
  Melissa Shere Beek: So, can you tell us I don't know which one of you can speak to this, but does music therapy help break up the amyloid plaque, like the abnormal protein deposits that accumulate in the brain?
• 40:19
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: I don't think we're at that point yet to We knowing did find in our results with the MCI that the brain is different, so there's less connection in the white matter, and then so that makes it less connection between the the memory centers of each hemisphere. Right. But as far as I know, there's no research yet
• 40:41
  Melissa Shere Beek: on these plaques. You haven't got on
• 40:43
  Leah Goldstein: it yet.
• 40:44
  Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. I'm
• 40:44
  Leah Goldstein: trusting you.
• 40:45
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Let's go.
• 40:46
  Leah Goldstein: What's your next
• 40:46
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: step? What's the next one?
• 40:48
  Melissa Shere Beek: Okay. So, Leah, you worked in in hospice. Will you will you tell us a little bit more about music therapy towards comfort care?
• 40:57
  Leah Goldstein: Yeah. Absolutely. Unlike using it for someone maybe with a cognitive or speech, the goals and interventions are not gonna be as as measurable per se.
• 41:09
  Melissa Shere Beek: Mhmm.
• 41:09
  Leah Goldstein: It's not gonna be to improve. Right. Because when you're dying, there's not that much. I mean, we can try to reduce pain and stuff. But I also found in hospice, there's a very large aspect that is spiritual based.
• 41:22
  I found that with my music. I found that when people had some kind of higher power
• 41:30
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Mhmm.
• 41:30
  Leah Goldstein: Whether it, you know, what they believe in
• 41:32
  Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
• 41:33
  Leah Goldstein: That brought a lot of comfort for the dying. Right. And I think music plays a huge role with that. Yeah. And bringing family together and people together and just coming in and, you know, you wouldn't know I'm a nice Jewish girl with the gospels over time.
• 41:48
  But like I said, also, there's this misconception that hospice means that you're actively dying and there's not. So those days that I was called for an extubation at the hospitals and then from there, I'm gonna go visit someone at a nursing home who's been on our on our services for maybe six years. Right. And that and that they do have goals that are a little more catered towards, okay, hey, like, you're not gonna be able to walk again, but maybe a little bit of the MIT and the speech. And like I said, pain reduction,
• 42:19
  Melissa Shere Beek: spirituality, family. Right. I don't think people really until, you know, God forbid they experience this either themselves or with a loved one that, you know, just because you have limitations, whether they're physical or cognitive, or that you're you're still a functioning human being.
• 42:35
  Leah Goldstein: Yeah. It's so sad. There's so much dignity that's lost. Yes. And especially a lot of these people who don't have families.
• 42:40
  They're put in these nursing homes. And left. And left. And there was this one lady I'll never forget. She grew up also in Cuba, hospice, accident care.
• 42:48
  We served a lot of a Hispanic. We served everything like Haitian and
• 42:51
  Melissa Shere Beek: Mhmm.
• 42:52
  Leah Goldstein: But she loved the beach. I used to come in with Lapilac sensory. Went to the dollar store and I got a box and filled it with sand and little shelves. And we put on the hat and I'd rubbed some tactile little lotion. Sure.
• 43:05
  Okay. We're going to the beach and I had like my beach music going and it was just bringing a little more life to them.
• 43:11
  Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. She probably lit up. Yeah.
• 43:13
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: I want Leah by my side when
• 43:15
  Melissa Shere Beek: I Yeah. Got we sign up for all of this? I mean, God forbid, we need you. We work differently.
• 43:19
  Leah Goldstein: I like a joke like what's gonna happen when it's like our age that's in hospice because we don't have the music that we used to have. It's gonna be like, you wanna play some Miley Cyrus or something? Like No.
• 43:29
  Melissa Shere Beek: But what should someone do if they're dealing with a loved one who's suffering from brain injury or dementia?
• 43:35
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: You mean a caregiver?
• 43:37
  Melissa Shere Beek: Which Yeah. Like, anybody who has a loved one who's experienced some sort of brain injury or dementia or is suffering from Alzheimer's, what should a caregiver do? What should they know? Well, I think if they're with Alzheimer's, they can be playing music that is shared between, let's say, it's
• 43:54
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: a husband and wife and and share memories that that come up from that.
• 43:59
  Melissa Shere Beek: That they're connected to personally.
• 44:00
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Yeah. Absolutely.
• 44:01
  Melissa Shere Beek: Uh-huh.
• 44:01
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: I I think I think caregivers I mean, there's just not enough music therapists to to serve every person with
• 44:08
  Melissa Shere Beek: all of their needs.
• 44:09
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: There's about 10,000 music therapists in The States.
• 44:11
  Melissa Shere Beek: Well, it's definitely not covering the percentages you gave us in the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. So we talked about music therapies to help someone who's been diagnosed with diminished cognitive abilities, but what about using music therapy as a way for prevention of memory loss? Do you do that with your do you in your research and your studies?
• 44:30
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: There are studies of in fact, actually, just with my graduate students today, was going over with them. This is the age related cognitive decline. So between 60 and 80 Uh-huh. There is a normal decline
• 44:44
  Leah Goldstein: Mhmm.
• 44:44
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: In cognition. And there's this study was about learning the piano, something novel, doing something novel like learning the piano. Of course, that that involves, you know, motor coordination, involves divided attention because you're reading music and you're looking at the keyboard. There was also some theory component as part of that. And the the study had people playing together like in a piano class.
• 45:11
  Mhmm. So it's also social, but then when they went home, they practiced for Right. Like, about three hours throughout the So it's it's somewhat intensive. You know, there's some engagement and some commitment to the to the music production, and it did delay that decline.
• 45:28
  Melissa Shere Beek: Okay. Good. So we should all be taking up instrument if we don't already or doing things to help prevention.
• 45:35
  Leah Goldstein: All needed never stop learning. Yeah. Right. You know, if you go and you sit in front of a TV just because you're older, the neuroplasticity. Yeah.
• 45:41
  Like our brain, like I know it's not technically, but it's like a muscle, you know? Just because you know how to sing doesn't mean you should stop taking voice lessons. Just because you know how to train a certain way doesn't mean you need to stretch before. I think that it's just so important for our brains to constantly be A little challenged. Yeah.
• 45:56
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Yeah. Absolutely.
• 45:57
  Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. Oh, good. Okay. And I I think I had another question here about that, about if there was specific research that shows that it was a a particular genre of music for brain health to stave off cognitive decline, or just something that each individual person relates to. Like A lot of the I'm gonna give give it a little further because we've heard about a lot about classical music when we when children are in developmental stages or even prenatally.
• 46:26
  Does research show a specific genre of music for helping with brain development or a specific genre that helps us age cognitively better?
• 46:37
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: You know, the the research in music therapy is it leans much more towards preferred music. What the person's familiar with, what they like.
• 46:46
  Melissa Shere Beek: But when you have it, maybe this is not the population, but if you have, like, prenatal or from the ages of zero to six, you have a two year old, are there certain things that we should be teaching children of those ages Your in brain
• 47:03
  Leah Goldstein: mother's Maybe not the genre as much as the person who's, you know, providing
• 47:06
  Melissa Shere Beek: To help brain development. Music to help brain development.
• 47:09
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Mhmm. So I think, you know, that infants, they they're gonna discriminate between sounds around age four. They start to be able to hold on to tunes better. I don't think that there's a particular genre that is going to be the one that you you should have for your child. Fact, they've made mistakes about that.
• 47:29
  Okay. Like, in the past where I think it was the governor of Georgia who want who funded some, like, Mozart CDs for every newborn baby.
• 47:38
  Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. My kids are in their around thirties, but we were said, oh, you know, you know, when you're pregnant, soon you find out, make them smart, you know, to help brain development, listen to classical music and
• 47:49
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: all that. So there there's a whole series of studies about the Mozart effect. And so the initial research came out of California, and the researcher was looking at some IQ scores, and and the college students did a little bit better when they listened to music. But she and she just said, well, the the the brain was the brain was more primed with the music. Mhmm.
• 48:12
  And some studies followed that. But what they found was when they included measures of like mood and arousal, which the music brought up in in terms of arousal, that was the effect that it had on the testing. So It's not a particular genre at No. Got it. Okay.
• 48:31
  But there are age appropriate music listening for children, you know, something that's not too complicated that they can they can sing back. Right. You know, the
• 48:41
  Melissa Shere Beek: Not rhythm repetitive that
• 48:42
  Leah Goldstein: jumping high octaves, you know, like, not gonna play rap. Right? So
• 48:48
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: repetitive.
• 48:50
  Leah Goldstein: Yeah.
• 48:50
  Melissa Shere Beek: Okay, got it. Why is music so tied to our first created memories, why we still connect to them? Because I feel like those are the last memories to go. I don't know why.
• 49:04
  Leah Goldstein: Hearing is the last sense to go.
• 49:06
  Melissa Shere Beek: Is that why?
• 49:07
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Mhmm.
• 49:07
  Melissa Shere Beek: Is that why we're so connected musically?
• 49:11
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Why we have it as a last memory? Is that what you're saying?
• 49:14
  Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. Like, why is it the last memories to go? Our connection to music is so deep.
• 49:18
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: I mean, it's Yeah. It's interesting. It's just reminding me of when I start my piano class, I ask the students to think of their earliest musical memory, and it's always really kind of fun to share those, you know. Yeah. And a lot of the time it's remembering their mother singing the lullaby to them and then they
• 49:33
  Melissa Shere Beek: Oh, I love that. That's beautiful.
• 49:35
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Yeah. They bring it
• 49:35
  Melissa Shere Beek: It goes back to what you said about your mother's voice. Yeah. Really, that's the music that you
• 49:39
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: That's the longest term memory and that I mean, if the brain is fading as, you know, like you peel an onion, then that's the last the last layer. It's there. And it's emotional. It's it's it's tied before you're really socialized and cognitively processing things, you're you're emotionally responding and that's where that sits. Yeah.
• 50:01
  Leah Goldstein: It's like if you've had a Brad break up and you're in the car, you're not gonna you're gonna put on a song that's probably a little more mopey or if you're on your way to the gym, you're gonna put on a jam. It's that there's that emotional Oh, yeah. No one needs to
• 50:12
  Melissa Shere Beek: see me driving to the gym. Yeah. Exactly. The music is so loud. Yeah.
• 50:18
  I've scared my husband when he gets into the car after because I forgot to turn down the volume, but I'm, like, pumping myself up on the way to work out, and then I forget, and then he gets in the car
• 50:27
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: and he's, ah, what happened? That's great.
• 50:29
  Melissa Shere Beek: What is the future of music therapy?
• 50:32
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: You know, before we totally answer that, I just wanna also say that there is another area that I've been working on with it. It's an NIH grant. Really? The the grant mechanism is called r 61, r 33, but it's it's a I would actually say this is partly the future of music therapy because there's been this incredible increase in funding made available to look at music and medicine. And a couple
• 50:56
  Melissa Shere Beek: of years Maybe more after this episode. I hope.
• 50:58
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Yeah. And a couple of years ago in Bethesda, Maryland, we came together. There were there were panel of speakers. The past president of NIH was there, and Renee Fleming who does sound health initiative, and there's a lot of funding for music through that as well. Fabulous.
• 51:17
  And so our particular project is mindfulness based music therapy for patients with stem cell transplant. Oh, wow. So looking at combining mindfulness with music and looking at immune function, all the psychosocial parts that happen with a long term hospitalization.
• 51:36
  Melissa Shere Beek: Oh, god, with stem cell, that's fascinating. That's incredible. Lot stuff happening. So the it's it's wide open, the future of music therapy. Mhmm.
• 51:44
  Leah Goldstein: Hopefully. And hopefully, just the more it's put out there and the more it's like so many people are like, oh, you're a music therapist, so you just go and play music? I mean, that's like what I get all the time. Yeah. You know, there's just like
• 51:55
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: a lack of education. I do
• 51:56
  Melissa Shere Beek: think that people don't understand the scope of what music therapy No.
• 52:00
  Leah Goldstein: It's not.
• 52:01
  Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. Is there anything we left out about that, the scope of music therapy?
• 52:04
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Well, let's see.
• 52:05
  Leah Goldstein: Just very wide range, like I said.
• 52:09
  Melissa Shere Beek: I think we covered a lot.
• 52:10
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Yeah, we did.
• 52:11
  Melissa Shere Beek: I love it. To me, I find it so fascinating and transformative, the power of music. And the cognitive, physical, and emotional benefits in particular with those suffering from brain injuries and cognitive impairment and disease. So I can't tell you how grateful I am and how appreciative I am that you two were here today. I have been so educated, and I hope our listeners have too.
• 52:37
  It's been so informative, and it's really critical. It's important, and people need to know more about this for themselves and for their loved ones. So I'm very honored that you are both here. I thank you so much. Thank you, Lisa.
• 52:49
  For our listeners, if they wanna know more, you could give me information later that I could put out links and different things like that. Sure. Okay. So some so the thing I like to wrap up each episode with is is a thing called I call quickie questions. Are you ready?
• 53:05
  Leah Goldstein: Yeah. Okay.
• 53:06
  Melissa Shere Beek: Would you mind telling us something that you've learned from either your students or your patients?
• 53:14
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Okay. Well, yeah, let's see. Yesterday, I was just watching some students. Use your energy. I I that just comes to mind.
• 53:22
  I was just watching the student working with actually, it was a community living center at the Miami VA, and I just loved her energy. And that was just so therapeutic in itself too with the music, you know. That's amazing. Use your energy.
• 53:37
  Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. Yeah. It's a good one.
• 53:40
  Leah Goldstein: I would say for me, a big takeaway that I just get constantly is to try to try to stay positive.
• 53:51
  Melissa Shere Beek: I know
• 53:52
  Leah Goldstein: it's hard. But I have people who have Alzheimer's and are completely nonverbal, and you can tell if they were kind of bitter people or if they're pleasantly confused at the end because there's two ways that can go. You have the really happy pleasantly confused Alzheimer's and you can tell that there's other people who Anger. Didn't have the best. Yeah.
• 54:09
  The anger. Let it go. Life is not permanent and we're all gonna die. And we deserve a good death and we also, like Doctor. Lesiak said, like, there's a one in nine chance, you know, there's a lot of neurological things that happen with our bodies.
• 54:23
  Let go Yeah. And and and try to keep that hope. I think it's really important.
• 54:28
  Melissa Shere Beek: I think that's critical. I think hope is critical.
• 54:31
  Leah Goldstein: Yeah.
• 54:31
  Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. Okay. Do you have a recent book that you've enjoyed or one that you like to recommend?
• 54:37
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: There's one that I'm reading right now. I think it's called something four weeks four weeks. But it and it ties into how life is finite.
• 54:45
  Melissa Shere Beek: Mhmm.
• 54:45
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: And so the okay.
• 54:47
  Melissa Shere Beek: Let's just see how does this go.
• 54:50
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: So it's it's about the the the decisions you're making right now. Make sure those you want to be making those.
• 54:57
  Leah Goldstein: Right.
• 54:58
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: Right? And it's kind of along that that line.
• 55:00
  Melissa Shere Beek: I like that.
• 55:00
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: I heard it on a podcast. I love it.
• 55:02
  Leah Goldstein: I'm good. I'm blank on the name, but it's a book by Jodi Picoult. She's one of my favorite authors. Okay. And she actually it's a it's a book about someone who's a beekeeper
• 55:15
  Melissa Shere Beek: Uh-huh.
• 55:15
  Leah Goldstein: And uses some some types of like music therapy and stuff. She had a loss in her family and, you know, how music has helped her cope. I'm completely blanking on the name. But if you look up on the it will come up.
• 55:28
  Melissa Shere Beek: I'm sure. She's she's a popular author. Okay. Do you think is your greatest strength? Compassion.
• 55:35
  Good Personality.
• 55:38
  Leah Goldstein: Yeah. Oh, I like that one.
• 55:40
  Melissa Shere Beek: Okay. And last question. What is your favorite memory? It could be a music memory or just just any favorite memory because we're talking so much about the brain in music therapy today.
• 55:50
  Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: I don't know what this one just came up. Hiking in Colorado in the Oh, wow. I don't know. It's just that was just
• 55:59
  Leah Goldstein: flashed over.
• 55:59
  Melissa Shere Beek: I visualize that. That's beautiful.
• 56:05
  Leah Goldstein: One of my happy places is actually pretty similar, especially because we live here in Miami and it's always like one season as I used to grow, spend spend our summers and winters in Long Island walking on the beach. Oh. Actually, we met Paul McCartney there one time just walking on the beach with his family. I was like, no one's gonna believe us. I don't have anything for you to But like, think some of my most peaceful memories are just being out there in nature.
• 56:28
  Melissa Shere Beek: Nature. The music. Healing.
• 56:30
  Leah Goldstein: The music in our heads, you know what I mean? That peace and that quiet. Yeah. It's all healing. Yeah.
• 56:34
  That's
• 56:35
  Melissa Shere Beek: beautiful. Thank you so much, ladies. I'm so honored that you are here. So to our listeners, thank you so much. I'm so grateful that you're here.
• 56:43
  Keep listening, keep learning, keep laughing, keep up with Beek on Being. Listen to Beek on Being wherever you get your podcasts. All episodes are automatically transcribed. A big shout out and a huge thank you to Stephen Chen at Penthouse Studios. Follow beaconbeing on Instagram for the latest.
• 57:01
  To share ideas, thoughts, suggestions, or nominate a guest, DM us. Want exclusive content, behind the scenes stories, and listener links? Subscribe. Beek on Being was recorded at Penthouse Studios and is a proud member of the Penthouse Podcast Network.