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Text of Post-Gazette article:
Music heals: Guitarist overcomes neurological condition through music
Pittsburgh musician Adam Rook is a living testament to music’s healing power.
A trained classical guitarist, Mr. Rook, 34, began experiencing symptoms of dystonia shortly after finishing a master’s degree at Duquesne University seven years ago. Focal dystonia is a neurological condition that causes involuntary contractions and movements in a muscle or muscle group in a specific part of the body — in Mr. Rook’s case, his right hand.
“It’s usually a career-ending diagnosis for a musician and lasts a lifetime,” said Mr. Rook, who now works as a counselor Downtown in vocational services for people with disabilities.
Mr. Rook of Polish Hill is preparing to release an EP of classical guitar solos titled “Metanoia” that he has recorded since recovering from focal dystonia. He also performs gigs at nursing homes through the organization Musicians With a Mission, which places Pittsburgh musicians in various health care settings.
“Dystonia in itself is very difficult to deal with — everyday activities like writing or typing become strenuous,” he said. “The process of recovery is uncertain. It took years and involved cycles of setbacks and discouragement. To lose something as basic as the use of your right hand challenges or even breaks part of your sense of identity, particularly when it’s connected to your profession and dreams of being a musician.”
Focal dystonia is rare but not unheard of in musicians. There is a closed online Facebook group for Musicians With Focal Dystonia that has 836 members. Dystonia affects as many as 250,000 people in the U.S. and is the third most common movement disorder behind essential tremor and Parkinson’s disease. Focal dystonia, a specific sort of dystonia, affects an estimated 7 to 69 per million people, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
While performing was completely impossible seven years ago for Mr. Rook, he has worked his “way back to performance level” through neuroplasticity rehabilitation, a growing area of research that emphasizes the ability of the central nervous system to accomplish structural and functional change in response to new experiences.
In this particular case, this plasticity has allowed Mr. Rook to retrain the muscles of his right hand by practicing the guitar. It has been a slow, seven-year process, but at this point his hand is once again his own. He credits Joaquin Farias, a Canada-based specialist in focal dystonia, with helping him to progress in his treatment. Mr. Farias has helped more than 1,500 patients, according to his website.
“My theory is that there was a brain crisis of some short, but we still cannot be certain about the cause or which kind of physiological failure could produce these symptoms,” Mr. Farias wrote in an email. “Music has a profound impact in brain function. In conditions like dystonias, music can be one of the tools you can use to help the brain recover its balance after a neurological failure/incident. The technique I designed helps the brain recover proper function, improve control over the movements that are affected, reconnect the neglected areas, re-tune the way the brain processes the sensory input and help the entire body to relax after a traumatic neurological event.”
Mr. Rook’s “Metanoia” represents his personal struggle, his breakdown and reformation.
“There are different uses for the word, but generally it signifies a fundamental change in outlook,” he said. “This has been the hard lessons of compassion, openness, more fully recognizing others, that we can find through suffering — but particularly suffering that is able to be shared and received with love.”