My Experience

Dear readers,


The special stories of people with a remarkable experience of music in healthcare will be shared in this blog. This could be experiences from hospital staff, (ex-)patients or family.

My drive to start this blog comes from my own experience:
In 2010 I was in a severe traumatic accident. I was hit by a car when I was riding my bicycle and landed on the street 50 feet further. In comatose condition I was transported to the hospital where I laid in a coma for a week. During my stay on the ICU my family was allowed to play some of my favourite music as it is considered to positively stimulate the brain processes, also in comatose patients.
This helped me a lot. Even before I was answering simple questions of the nurses, I was singing along with music from James Taylor and John Mayer! I did also like the classical piano music from the movie 'Amélie' (which I learned how to play on the guitar as well) and it was played many times. This amazed the nurses as most boys in the age of 16 listen to a whole different music genre. 😉

Also during my rehabilitation, after staying in the hospital for one and a half months, music played a key role in my recovery. From the age of 8 I've been playing classical acoustic guitar and I was pretty well skilled before the accident. During my rehabilitation I was allowed to finally go home during the weekends.
I do remember this pretty well, one weekend when I was home I picked up my guitar and tried to play again. I wasn't able to hit even one string, my hand-eye coordination was totally gone.
During a visit from my guitar teacher she offered me to come in the weekends to help me learn to play the guitar once more. So early in my rehabilitation I was practicing how to play the guitar, and slowly my coordination came back and, luckily, after roughly a year I was plucking the strings like I did before!

Thanks to playing the guitar which makes the left and right brain work together, and the best family and friends I've been fully recovered! Now, 8 years after the accident, I'm busy with my master's degree in Technical Medicine (Medical Sensing and Stimulation) at the University of Twente. My aim for the future is to do studies to understand the exact mechanism of what music does to the brain, so that we can offer the perfect music for every patient!

Now I'm participating in a project to bring live music to the ICU in the Netherlands, 'MuzIC'. We hope that in a few years all ICU's will welcome the great musicians to play for their patients. Then not only the patient, but also family, friends and the ICU staff will benefit from the soothing effect of the live music!


Thanks for reading,
Bas