Kids with asthma could stop reaching for their inhalers and start reaching for their musical instruments if a study currently being conducted at the Louis Armstrong Center for Music & Medicine at Beth Israel Hospital in New York City pans out.

Researchers are studying the effects of music therapy on the disease. It is believed that music therapy can help breathing and ease anxiety and depression related to asthma.The Center’s Asthma Initiative Program (AIP) provides a free recorder (a wind instrument) and journal to each kid enrolled in the sixmonth program, and kids are asked to write daily about their symptoms and feelings.
They meet weekly for therapy, where they play a variety of instruments, listen to music and talk.

It’s always a step in the right direction, in my opinion, to teach, not only holistic methods of health management but also self reliance. Now if only we could lower the levels of pollution that has so many Latino children suffering from the illness in the first place.

Via / NYC Indymedia

Image Via / EPA.Gov