RHYTHM AS SENSORIMOTOR SUPPORT: HOW SOUND AFFECTS STRIDE LENGTH AND STEP FREQUENCY

Rhythm therapy has shown to be an effective complement to other methods for treating neurological diseases such as Parkinson's disease or stroke. Several studies have shown improvement in specially the patient's ability to maintain a steady walk with a normal stride length. It has been investigated what actual changes that occur in the brain while listening to music in relation to motor changes, but none of these studies can clearly explain why rhythm therapy works so well for PD patients and what part of the auditory stimulus that affects the patient most. The aim of this article is to investigate how sound is used to treat Parkinson’s disease, and through a study of healthy adults create an idea of how different types of auditory stimuli affect stride length and step frequency. The study consisted of 19 participants that walked a distance of 10 meters 6 times each. One time without any auditory stimuli, one time with to the sound of a metronome, three times with different kinds of music that the experiment leaders had chosen and one time with a musical piece of their own choice. The result of this study indicates that the musical piece the participant had chosen for themselves gave the best result