ISME
2014 – Porto Alegre, Brazil
Interview
with Dr. Eckart Altenmüller, keynote speaker
Dr. Eckart Altenmüller,
world-renowned performing arts medicine physician, will serve as one
of the keynote speakers at the 2014 ISME World Conference in Porto
Alegre, Brazil. Gail Berenson, chair of the Musicians' Health
and Wellness SIG (special interest group) interviewed Dr.
Altenmüller, offering ISME members a glimpse into his life and some
personal insights about this remarkable individual.
Dr. Altenmüller,
you are a world-renowned and respected physician in the field of
performing arts medicine. We are honored that you will be
serving as one of our keynote speakers at the 2014 ISME World
Conference. Tell us a little about your extensive background in
music and what ultimately influenced you to choose the field of
performing arts medicine as a career.
I come from a family
with 8 siblings and I am the youngest. All my brothers and sisters
made music and I started to play the piano at age 6 and flute at age
8. Our house was full of music and when I was 16 I wanted to become a
professional musician. However, my parents were somewhat skeptical
about a musician career and so they convinced that I should study
"something real". That is the reason why I started with
medicine. But my wish to play music became stronger and stronger, and
therefore, two years later, I decided to study additionally music. I
finished my doctoral degree in medicine in 1983 and my music studies
with a major in German flute and a concert diploma in 1985. Already
at that time I did research into the brain mechanisms of music
perception and into the influence of music on our brain wiring. After
1985 I decided to become a neurologist, since I believe that the
brain is the most fascinating organ of our body. I was trained in the
Neurological Department of the University of Tübingen and
continued to do research into brain plasticity after injuries,
furthermore into changes of the brain due to music instruction. The
latter work I did in collaboration with my colleague Wilfried Gruhn
from the Music Pedagogy department in Freiburg. During all the time,
my musicians friends continued to ask me for medical advice and that
is how I realized that there was an urgent need in knowledge
concerning prevention of musicians injuries. In 1994 finally I had to
wonderful and unique opportunity to join the faculty of the Hannover
University of Music, Drama and Media and to establish an institute
dedicated to research, prevention and treatment in performing arts
medicine.
Do you still
continue to practice and perform?
Yes, I still play
and continue to practice and perform, and I consider this as an
important part of my private and my professional live. If one
really wants to understand all the pressures, but also the joys, a
musician experiences, you have to give concerts in a professional
way.
Knowing what a
powerful and pioneering advocate you have been for musician wellness,
how do you think performing arts medicine has evolved over the
past decade and do you see evidence that administrators, fellow
physicians and musicians are beginning to recognize how crucial this
subject is to everyone?
I am very happy with
the development of the last twenty years. A lot has happened,
there are well established Performing Arts Medicine Associations in
the USA, in Germany, France, UK, the Netherlands, Finland,
Switzerland and new associations continue to be founded, for example
two years ago last year in Austria and this year in Ireland.
Furthermore, music conservatoires and musicians become more and more
aware of prevention of musicians' problems, and I am very happy that
ISME is now also taking initiative to augment knowledge in this
field.
What role do you
feel universities should play in educating music majors about healthy
music making? How might this be accomplished?
Universities have a
crucial role in promoting students health and in providing
students with techniques to prevent injuries, overuse, burn-out and
self-exploitation. I think all music universities should offer at
least one practical course on health management and one theoretical
course in prevention and "healthy musicianship". it is the
more important, since students are the future teachers, and they are
going to multiply knowledge and to transfer it to the youngest. And
as I always say, the beginners need the best informed teachers!
Do you perceive
integration between your work in healthcare and your life as a
musician? In other words, do you see art in the
practice of medicine, and do you see health science in the
performance of music?
Yes, I feel that
these two fields are complementary. A good musician is a therapist,
since she/he can not only communicate emotions and give sense of
meaning to other people, but also communicate body awareness, sense
of wellbeing, proper breathing. Musicians can be models for the art
to deal with the body, since their bodies are their instruments. On
the other hands doctors can try to communicate emotions as musicians
do, they can consider their work as an art, as a skillful and
empathic activity and they need to listen to the patients as
musicians do with their fellows in chamber music or in a choir. It is
not by chance that the Ancient Greeks unified both arts in one God,
Apollo.
What do you consider
to be the most critical wellness information that teachers should be
communicating to their students?
Students should
listen to their bodies and they should learn to control bodily and
psychological tensions. And they should learn to stop
practicing in the right moment - most music students tend to practice
too long!
What direction is
your research currently taking?
We are mainly
working on the prevention of chronic pain and overuse by
investigating and promoting healthy practice. Furthermore we work on
the treatment and prevention of a condition called "Musician's
Dystonia". This is a loss of fine motor abilities in trained
musicians, due to overuse and genetic factors.
Of the patients you
see, do you notice any particular trends in the types of injuries
that they are experiencing? Are the numbers increasing or
decreasing?
This is a very
interesting point. I observe, that our prevention programs in Germany
are increasingly effective. When I started with this work, 20 years
ago, I saw many more overuse injuries than nowadays. Furthermore, the
patients were much more distressed and they had seen many doctors who
could not help them. Nowadays, access to specialized health
professional is provided almost all over Germany and there is a
lot of knowledge in the musicians community. I am sure that the
ISME -network will contribute enormously to internationalize this
positive trend!
