Playing wind instruments and singing as a form of respiratory rehabilitation in pulmonary and neurological diseases

Abstract

Author(s): Konstancja Wegrzyn, Piotr Wegrzyn, Natalia Dabrowska, Agnieszka Góra, Anna Salinska, Julia Skwara, Dawid Barański, Maciej Nowicki, Gustaw Laskowski and Marcin Wasilewski

Singing and playing wind instruments as a form of engaging in musical activities is a no foreign practice in human culture. For quite some time music has also been present in medicine as a form of music therapy. In this paper we discuss the use of singing and playing wind instruments in pulmonary rehabilitation. Because of the fact that singing and playing wind instruments share a prominent amount of similarities, such as sound emission mechanism or the respiratory muscles recruitment, we suggest that those two activities’ use in respiratory rehabilitation can be discussed collectively. Singing and wind instruments playing are presumed to be a proper rehabilitation tool in alleviating the symptoms as well as improving the quality of life in conditions such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), asthma, Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD), Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA), Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, dementia, and Long Covid. For the reason of low cost and low risk of musical activity as a form of treatment, further research is needed in order to apply singing and playing wind instruments in more diseases’ management, especially those where the main focus is weighted on improving patients’ quality of life.

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