Health Research That’s Music To Our Ears

Here’s another reason your mother was right about keeping up music lessons—there’s a long-term health benefit. Some musicians have fewer age-related hearing problems than non-musicians, according to a study at Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute in Toronto.

Many people experience the “cocktail party problem”—trouble hearing a conversation when there’s background noise, but musicians develop the problem at a later age. A 70-year-old lifelong musician can understand speech in a noisy environment as well as a 50-year-old non-musician. Older musicians also do better at detecting gaps in continuous sounds, which helps with speech perception, and detecting different sound frequencies, useful in separating one voice from another. Health Research That’s Music To Our Ears

Here’s another reason your mother was right about keeping up music lessons—there’s a long-term health benefit. Some musicians have fewer age-related hearing problems than non-musicians, according to a study at Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute in Toronto.

Many people experience the “cocktail party problem”—trouble hearing a conversation when there’s background noise, but musicians develop the problem at a later age. A 70-year-old lifelong musician can understand speech in a noisy environment as well as a 50-year-old non-musician. Older musicians also do better at detecting gaps in continuous sounds, which helps with speech perception, and detecting different sound frequencies, useful in separating one voice from another. Health Research That’s Music To Our Ears

Here’s another reason your mother was right about keeping up music lessons—there’s a long-term health benefit. Some musicians have fewer age-related hearing problems than non-musicians, according to a study at Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute in Toronto.

Many people experience the “cocktail party problem”—trouble hearing a conversation when there’s background noise, but musicians develop the problem at a later age. A 70-year-old lifelong musician can understand speech in a noisy environment as well as a 50-year-old non-musician. Older musicians also do better at detecting gaps in continuous sounds, which helps with speech perception, and detecting different sound frequencies, useful in separating one voice from another.