Hearing is the sense that functions the longest in humans – even if they are in a vegetative state. Music therapist Manfred Lüsing-Hauert plays the piano and guitar for the patients of the FIP in Barßel.
Barßel - Manfred Lüsing-Hauert sits down with his guitar at a patient’s bed. He speaks to him in a friendly manner, says that he now wants to play for him. The young man’s face seems to relax. His eyes are open. Lüsing-Hauert plucks the strings. Tones sound, a melody emerges. His gaze is on his counterpart, all of his attention is turned to him. How does the patient react? Does he like what he is experiencing? A permanent exchange develops between listener and musician.
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dedicates its Christmas campaign in cooperation with the non-profit foundation of the newspaper group Ostfriesland (ZGO) “Ein Herz für Ostfriesland” this year to the work in the specialist facility for intensive care, FIP, in Barßel. With the help of donations, a wheelchair rickshaw is to be purchased for the coma patients. It works in a similar way to a cargo bike: the wheelchair with the seated passenger can be placed in the front. Such a special bicycle would significantly increase the range of motion for FIP patients and their families. They could go on trips together – for example on the dike hiking trail on the nearby Soeste.
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Lüsing-Hauert can read the reaction of his counterpart on the devices to which the young man is connected. But he also experiences it with the patient himself. The musician is sensitized to this. People in a vegetative state also show reactions. “If you open your eyes wide, that’s a sign of approval,” says the 66-year-old. Some react defensively with noises and head movements. Then Manfred Lüsing-Hauert knows that it is enough.
The sense of hearing is functional the longest
The native Emslander, who lives in Mitling-Mark, has been working as a music therapist in the specialist facility for intensive care, FIP, since 2007. “Music can also reach the seriously ill, since hearing is the sense that remains functional the longest,” explains the head of the facility, Volker Bley.
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Interview GA Christmas campaign
26.11.2021
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He got to know Lüsing-Hauert as a music teacher for his children and asked him if he could imagine making music for the patients of the FIP. He could and wanted to do that. Lüsing-Hauert has been playing guitar and piano since childhood, studied musicology in Oldenburg and has been a teacher at the specialist school for curative education at St. Lukas-Heim in Papenburg since 1996. He also teaches music students privately.
Musician has been playing in the FIP for 15 years
After FIP moved to the building on Barßeler Mühlenweg in 2007, the music therapist started there. He comes once or twice a week and makes music for around 16 of the 72 patients who are housed there. The relatives have been informed that the offer is available. It is basically aimed at every patient, especially those who had to do with music before their illness.
KIDS, the organization’s development association, was on board from the start and finances part of its position. FIP pays part of it itself. Music therapy for those who are continuously ventilated and those in need of extreme assistance is not covered by health insurances. “That’s absurd,” says Manfred Lüsing-Hauert. Because he knows that music is beneficial for the sick.
Reports of experiences from coma patients
Before joining FIP, the music therapist read reports from people who were comatose and awakened. So that he understands what their environment looked like, what they found pleasant and what not. That goes far beyond the purely medical facts, he says.
What he does in the FIP is, on the one hand, therapeutic and educational preoccupation with the patient through music, but to a certain extent also a concert experience. The 66-year-old can freely play whatever is desired on the piano and guitar, be it rock, pop, classical or hit music. Depending on what the patient liked to hear or played himself in his previous life. He often develops his own sound worlds for his listeners, his own compositions that are strongly rhythmic. A musical kaleidoscope that affects the soul of the listener.
Patients relax to the sounds
When he plays, says Lüsing-Hauert, sometimes the patient’s whole face begins to laugh, accompanied by approving sounds. Relatives would experience moods and facial expressions in their loved ones like never before. If you hold the patient in your arms, she could feel the patient relax to the sounds. Even the other patient in a twin room, reports the music therapist, often becomes noticeably looser under the chimes.
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The clinical picture in FIP carries a certain form of melancholy. “A person wants something and cannot,” says Lüsing-Hauert. You shouldn’t overdo it. For some patients it is unclear what they are seeing. Is it shadows, is it pictures? The music therapist knows that those in need of extreme care hear. He tried it himself. When he makes a noise, they react.
“Illness is part of existence”
Dealing with patients doesn’t make him melancholy, he says that he developed professionalism. When he experiences how strong relatives deal with the symptoms of the disease, put the grief into perspective. “Illness is part of being human,” says Lüsing-Hauert. It is a reality. Fortunately, music is also part of this world. Humans have been making music since time immemorial, producing songs and tones because they made them happy. In the FIP, Lüsing-Hauert tries to convey the importance that music has in human interaction to his patients.
Healing someone with sounds and dragging them out of a coma was a dream, he says. It’s remained a dream. But music offers the patient what it triggers in their healthy fellow human beings, namely joy and variety. When a seriously ill person perceives Manfred Lüsing-Hauert playing the guitar, it is a different external stimulus for him than everyday care. It is something that triggers the impulse to perceive one’s senses differently. This is no different with the people in FIP than with the people outside, and that connects. Https://www.paypal.com/donate? Hosted_button_id = 38XPGLGFYG8MC
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