[Harp-L] Help wanted for Harmonica Medical/Scientific Study

["James F. Antaki, PhD" <turbodog@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 16 Aug 2010 
John Schaman <jschaman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

...
I would very much appreciate your help.  <snip> Almost three years ago, I
became intrigued by the possibility that playing the harmonica might have
medical/health benefits, primarily pulmonary (lung).
<snip> In order to conduct a 3dose-response2 study, it is necessary to
quantitate harmonica playing, as some means of quantitating the 3dose2 is
required. 
<snip>  I developed several ideas and I tried to work with the University of
Waterloo Bio-Engineering department, so far without success.  I felt the
most likely method to give this measurement is some type of strain gauge on
the chest which measures both frequency and magnitude of chest excursion.
The combination of these two variables should give a reasonably accurate
indicator of harmonica playing intensity.
...

Turbodog response: 
Pleasure to make your acquaintance, John.  I also had the pleasure of
meeting Terry Rand, Mary Jane Gormley and Lee Anna Rasar at SPAH this past
Friday. 

Please allow me to introduce you to Dr. Jay Zwichenberger, copied above,
whom I believe you will find to be a kindred spirit. Jay is the Chief of
Cardiothoracic Surgery at U Kentucky, and also coincidentally has caught the
harmonica bug. In fact he has become quite an accomplished player, student
of Howard Levy, and has been known to treat his audience to a sampling of
his harmonica stylings at Grand Rounds, and keynote presentations. 

Jay has recently hired a full-time staff person to lead the music therapy
service in his department. I am confident that the infusion of Jay's
enthusiasm, with your expertise, the leadership of Terry Rand and Mary Jane
Gormley, that there will be critical mass that we all seek to develop
harmonica therapy into a widespread standard-of-care.

In addition... it would not hurt to apply for NIH support for this program.
I dare say that a multi-center clinical trial would be candidate for a
program project award. Considering the sheer magnitude of cardiovascular
cardiopulmonary disease, I can easily envision a multi million dollar 5-10
year award.

(BTW, as a Biomedical Engineer by day, I've worked with various respiration
monitors; one being a belt worn around the chest. Although it can only
measure thoracic respiration, and does not account for diaphragmatic
respiration, its quick and easy to implement. Alternative is interthoracic
impedance, used by rate adaptive pacemakers to measure minute volume. And
I'm sure there are other modalities that have already been validated.)

Jim "Turbodog" Antaki
www.turboharp.com
"Harmonicas of the Future"