Adrian Northrup

With the backseat of her car stuffed with jangling percussion and bulky instrument cases, senior Amy Oppriecht makes her way to Dove Healthcare Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, 1405 Truax Blvd. Once there, she will spend close to an hour with resident Liz Wilson, singing songs, playing instruments and doing activities.

What looks like fun and games is actually a unique form of treatment for Wilson’s post-stroke problems – music therapy. Everything Oppriecht does in her sessions will address the therapeutic goals she set up for her patients, whose problems range from mental conditions such as autism to anger and pain management.

“I’m not even done with school yet,” Oppriecht said, “and I already know how many lives I’ve touched.”

Unusual opportunities
Oppriecht is one of just 40 UW-Eau Claire students in the music therapy program. As part of their graduation requirements, students must complete four practicums and one clinical study in which they work with real patients in local settings such as hospitals, nursing homes, jails and the music therapy clinic.

“There’s so many things you can do (with music therapy),” senior Erin Spellacy said. “We address a wide variety of needs.”

After Spellacy completes her coursework this December, she will take an internship at a hospital in Minneapolis. There, she will help people with psychological disorders and traumatic brain injuries, she said, in addition to working in the geriatric department – which she said is her area of interest.

The internship is also a component to receiving the music therapy degree.

Professor Lee Anna Rasar, the only music therapy faculty member, said many internships are specially tailored for students’ clinical interests and the places they want to work.

“It’s important that they have what they want in terms of experience,” she said.

Senior Elizabeth Schrader, for example, said she is researching an opportunity in Cambodia, where she would work with child victims of human trafficking.

Oppriecht is also heading overseas in January to work at a children’s hospital in Melbourne, Australia. She will spend most of her time in neo-natal care, she said, working with premature babies, and will also help in other areas of the hospital and complete a research project. Her supervisor is a well-known music therapist, she added.

“It’s ridiculous how blessed I am,” she said of the opportunity.

Alternative’ medicine
Music actually affects neurological functions, Schrader said, and can be used to treat countless physical, mental and emotional problems. Therapists tailor musical activities for each individual, according to that person’s needs, Spellacy said.

In hospitals, she said music therapists could address pain management, including women in labor, and work with physical, speech and occupational therapists to aid patients. It also reduces reliance on medication and length of hospital stays, she said.

“It definitely improves quality of life,” she said.

Working with people with special needs is an amazing experience, Schrader said, especially since music therapists often deal with populations that are ignored.

“These people understand forgiveness, humility and honesty,” she said.

Last semester, Schrader said she worked at the Eau Claire County Jail with female inmates in an anger management class. The music therapists focused on song lyrics the women identified with, she said, and would help inmates personalize songs to express themselves.

“I’ve seen so many of them realize what they want to change,” said Oppriecht, who also worked in the anger management class and still plays piano at the jail.

One of Oppriecht’s clients this semester is 3-year-old Nathan Brunner, who has autism. In her sessions, she works to engage Brunner and help him express himself emotionally through drums and other instruments.

Spellacy is also working with a man who has autism, she said, and to assist him with social skills and self-expression, she said she uses “mood vectoring.” With this technique, Spellacy said she improvises a song on the piano that matches her client’s mood. Gradually, she said the music changes and helps him make his mood more positive.

When Oppriecht works with Wilson, the woman recovering from a stroke, she will play familiar hymns on the guitar to improve speech and memory. Physical therapy is also addressed, Oppriecht said, by doing music activities that help Wilson move her feet, hands and wrists that were affected by the stroke. Music takes people’s minds off their pain, she said.

Last semester, Spellacy also helped a young woman with a developmental disability, she said. By putting on a musical play, the therapist helped her client learn how to lead a project and build up her self-esteem.

“It’s giving control to people who otherwise might not have that control,” she said.

Talent and motivation
The seniors agreed that music therapy majors must take a rigorous course load, including seven semesters on a specific instrument.

Piano and guitar are required instruments, Oppriecht said, and students must also take the music department’s technique courses, which teach basics on strings, woodwind and percussion instruments.

Oppriecht and Spellacy are voice majors, they said, while Schrader said she plays the piano and harp.
Personal beliefs came into play when the women were deciding to go into music therapy.
Schrader said she sees God working through music and feels he guided her to use her gifts in this way.

“Ultimately . it’s going to be God working through the activities,” she said.
Oppriecht and Spellacy each decided on music therapy after beginning different degrees at other universities.

“I realized I have this ability to play and it needed to be somewhere in my life,” Oppriecht said.

Spellacy also transferred to Eau Claire for its program, she said, because she thought the field was “intriguing” and fit her talents.

Despite past and present talk about cutting the music therapy program, Rasar said her students are loyal to the program. Eau Claire is the only public university in Wisconsin to offer the major, she said, and has become nationally known through the years.

“I couldn’t not do it – it’s part of me,” Rasar said of her involvement in both her students’ progress and volunteer work in the community.

Wilson’s experience with an Eau Claire-produced therapist is something she said she couldn’t replace, since she’s already improved a great deal with Oppriecht’s help.

“It means so much to me,” she said. “I can express myself.”