by Nasim Begum

Created on: December 12, 2006

Mozart was a wonderful music composer, who wrote many magnificent pieces. There have been some claims that some of his music has a Mozart's Effect' on certain people, especially epilepsy sufferers. John Jenkins professor of endocrinology at the University in London wrote the article believing that Mozart's music influenced the electrical impulses in the brain, which are disturbed in epileptics and hence the seizures. The sonata in discussion is the K 448 which was called 'one of the most profound of all his compositions' by Mozart authority Alfred Einstein.

In the UK, there are 420,000 people who suffer from epilepsy. That is one in every 130 people. There are over 40 types of different seizures and these can be triggered off at any time, the most common factors are; stress, photosensitivity, lack of sleep, late nights, illness, hormones, diet and drugs. Treatment is available to decrease the number of fits but there is no treatment to be completely seizure free.

Tests were conducted with the K 448 sonata and the results were amazing. 29 patients with severe epilepsy were played Mozart while their brainwaves were measured and 23 showed reduced epileptic activity. There were also two patients who had epileptic activities 90% of the time but when they were listening to the sonata for at least 5 minutes these activities dropped to 50%. However most of the patients studied began to fall back in their old pattern of seizures once the music was stopped.

To study further if this music had any longer term affects an eight year old girl was studied. She listened to the music for 10 minutes an hour while she was awake. They noticed that during the first four hours she had up to nine seizures but gradually towards the last four hours she only had the one. The very next day she only had 2 seizures in eight hours.

So overall this information gives an insight to how certain music can actually influence the brain and in fact change and alter epileptic behaviour. Obviously more research needs to be done in this field to determine whether long term music therapy has any further affects on epilepsy sufferers and whether or not this therapy can completely make patients seizure free without any pills or medication.

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