Using Sound for Massage

From a ping from Rupinder:

A sultry blues riff may cause some listeners to swoon, while a hypnotic techno-beat can give others a drug-like high, but can low frequency sounds actually treat disease?

According to a study from the University of Toronto in Canada, research suggests that Vibroacoustic Therapy (VAT), which uses vibrations produced by low frequency sounds to “massage” deep parts of the body, could help patients with neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s.

The study involved two groups of 20 Parkinson’s patients being treated with five minutes of 30 Hz vibrations. Results showed marked improvement of all symptoms in both groups, including less rigidity, better walking speed, and less tremor.

Before you decide to crank up the volume on your speakers and park yourself on your subwoofer, however, keep in mind that the VAT was administered using special transducers that convert the sound to inner body massage. It’s thought that brain waves at a frequency of 40 Hz are the carriers of information that control movement; the transducers are fine tuned to produce vibrations between 20 and 100 Hz, which are almost too low to hear audibly, but whose vibrations can add stimulation to brainwaves.

In addition to affecting the brain, VAT also provides deep physical cellular stimulation to skin, muscles and joints, much like vibrating muscle massagers, but deeper acting. As such, researchers have observed decreased pain and increased mobility when VAT is applied to the rest of the body.

More here and here.