The point blank range shooting seven weeks' ago of US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has raised renewed interest in music therapy for brain injury survivors.

Miss Giffords is being rehabilitated at a clinic in Houston, Texas, called the Institute for Rehabilitation and Research (TIRR) in Memorial Hermann Hospital.

A bullet punctured the left hemisphere of her brain, which is the control centre for language and movement on her right side.

Music therapist Maegan Morrow has been playing guitar at her bedside and encouraging Miss Giffords to try to recall the words of simple nursery rhymes. This helps regain speech and memory, and music and rhythm apparently helps all parts of the brain, and can help with movement and mobility as well.

Miss Giffords has been making amazing progress according to recent reports, and the music has now progressed to jazz and rock songs as part of a daily regime of intensive physical, occupational and speech therapy. From someone who was considered 'dead', or at least to have been left in a persistent vegetative state, her recovery to date has been remarkable.

In this country, music therapy is recognised as being part of an overall brain injury rehabilitation programme, and is used at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability, in Putney, London. The Nordoff-Robins charity is also involved in teaching music therapists for all types of medical conditions, not just brain injuries.

There's been a recent review of the effectiveness of music therapy by the Cochrane Foundation, which looked into a series of past studies and summarised their findings.

The review states that acquired brain injury can result in problems with movement, language, sensation, thinking or emotion. Any of these may severely reduce a survivor's quality of life.

Many innovative therapy techniques have been developed to help recover lost functions and to prevent depression. Music therapy involves using music to aid rehabilitation. Specific treatments may include the use of rhythmic stimulation to aid movement and walking, singing to address speaking and voice quality, listening to music to reduce pain, and the use of music improvisations to address emotional needs and enhance a sense of wellbeing.

The Foundation identified and included seven studies involving 184 participants in its review, all of which were carried out by a trained music therapist. The results suggest that rhythmic auditory stimulation may be beneficial for improving measures of walking, but there was insufficient information to examine the effect of music therapy on other outcomes. Further clinical trials are needed.

If you or anyone you know has suffered a brain injury, our team can help advise on anything from rehabilitation to making a brain injury claim. Call our helpline on 03700 86 86 86.

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