'Music has charms to soothe a savage breast.'So wrote William Congreve in The Mourning Bride (1697). Often misattributed to Shakespeare, the quote means that music can heal heartbreak. All music lovers know music's emotionally restorative power. There is growing evidence that it can speed the healing of real neurological damage, too - as in the case of US Congresswoman Cabrielle Ciffords, who in January 2011 took a bullet to the head in a politically-motivated shooting at a gathering of her constituents in an Arizona shopping centre.PALLIATIVE POTENTIAL Giffords spent the early months of 2011 in intensive care, beneficiary of the best medical treatment available to US public servants. Music therapy was and continues to be an essential component of her recovery regime, as mentioned in many news stories.
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