Kenyan Scholar in US Strives to Bring Arts in Kenya's Healthcare

By ML Staff
Updated at 9:30p.m. CT

January 22, 2006 -- Kenyan scholar and researcher in music and healing at the University of Florida - Dr. David Otieno Akombo is working with the University of Florida to establish Music Therapy at the Mater Hospital in Nairobi.

Dr. Akombo has been researching the effects of music on healing for several years. While the music therapy is much better developed in Western nations compared to Africa, the United States, Australia, and Europe have full fledged music therapy programs in colleges and in hospitals.

Since the inception of the music therapy in 1950s, many nations have been slow at implementing this worthy discipline in their curriculum. Dr. Akombo is championing the growth of music in healthcare for Africa.

He is working with Ms. Jill Sonke, the Co-director for the Center for the Arts in Healthcare Research and Education at the University of Florida to bring the Arts in Healthcare at Kenya’s Mater hospital in Nairobi.

“The practice of using music for healing has been on going phenomena. Many scholars in their treatises recognized the use of music for curative purposes. The practice is almost as old as music itself. Using music to treat injury or disease is as old as civilization” says Akombo.

The liturgical religious mythologies attribute a report of music therapy to David who played his harp to Saul for curative purpose. Pythagoras being able to calm an agitated youth bent on violence by having the piper change from one mode to another.

In the ancient times, music was regarded as a special force over thought, emotion, and physical health in ancient Greece. Earlier studies have observed that in the year 600 BC, Thales was credited with curing plague in Sparta through musical powers.

Music was described as an art exerting great power (ethos) over human beings, and certain musical styles came to be associated with particular peoples and specific catharsis.

Even today, in our stressed and busy world, we are again turning to music as a means to heal and relax our lives. People in all walks of life, of all ages, are listening to music specifically designed to harmonize and heal.

Today’s musicians often combine a broad knowledge of ancient world musical traditions with a more scientific understanding of how music and sound can be precisely applied to effect the body, the brain and the consciousness. Futurists are predicting that the vibrations of music and sound will be a primary healing modality of the future.

Dr. Akombo would like to collaborate with researchers in all aspects of human health endeavor such as those in music education, ethnomusicology, and biomedical science who would be interested in working on this project to help Africa compete favorably with the West.

He can be reached by email at dakombo@ufl.edu or by telephone at (352)392-0223 xt. 306.


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