When Wendy Driscoll was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2003, she felt robbed of a lifelong love: singing. "I'd been a choral singer all my life. It got to the point where I couldn't sing to the end of a long phrase or note," recalls Driscoll, 75, a resident of Westborough, MA. Disheartened by her weaker voice and decreased breath control, which made it difficult for her to talk, let alone sing, Driscoll didn't necessarily want help. She was wary of support groups.

Eventually, though, her symptoms became so severe that she felt she needed to talk to someone. She went to hear a featured speaker at a support group in Worcester, MA, and began attending the monthly group on a regular basis. But she still felt she needed something more. So last year, when Kelly Richardson, PhD, a speech-language pathologist and associate professor in the department of communication disorders at the University of Massachusetts Amherst's School of Public Health and Health Sciences, approached the group and asked if members would be interested in participating in an 11-week experiment involving weekly singing sessions, Driscoll jumped at the chance. "I was all over it," she remembers.

Addressing Vocal Problems

Dr. Richardson had studied behavioral speech and voice treatment for Parkinson's disease during her doctoral training at the University of Buffalo in New York. Her earlier research suggested that a regimen of vocal and breathing exercises in tandem with singing might improve many of the difficulties patients face with breath control and vocal volume.

She recruited Shelly Roberts, an accomplished, energetic choir director, to provide vocal and breathing warm-ups as part of the experiment. Ten people from the support group, including Driscoll, joined the study.

Seeds of Change

In September 2015, the group met at the First Congregational Church, a classic white New England building in the center of Shrewsbury, MA. Initially, there was an awkward silence, says Bob Harold, who attended the meeting. People were anxious about speaking up, fearing their voices would be too soft to be understood. But as Roberts led them through warm-ups, they began to loosen up.

Roberts asked everyone to greet each other with a high, theatrical "How are you?" a la Julia Childs. After that, they all loudly counted down from 10 while jabbing their fists in the air.

After the warm-up, Roberts reserved time for people to share what was on their minds. Most talked about how their week had been. Some vented frustrations, and others had a good cry.

Stronger Through Song

Each week, at the gentle yet persistent coaxing of Roberts, the group began to sing louder and stronger. And something else happened: They began to coalesce into a family. They began spending time together outside of practice and carpooling to sessions. The time together made everyone feel safe and listened to, says Driscoll.

In this supportive environment, lives began to change. Participants were motivated to come to practice, and they experienced significant improvements in breath strength and vocal volume, says Dr. Richardson, who measured them both at the start (two weeks pre-treatment) and end (one week post-treatment) of the study. That, in turn, led to other bonuses. "People were finally able to speak on the phone again," Dr. Richardson says. "It was the first time some of them had called their grandchildren in years."

Climatic Concert

A few weeks before the end of the experiment, Roberts asked the choir—dubbed The Sound of Parkinson's—if they would be interested in doing a concert at the end of the study. "She didn't have to wait for an answer," says Harold. "We were stoked!"

Held in a spare room in St. Vincent's hospital in Worcester, under fluorescent lights, the concert attracted a standing-room-only crowd of family, friends, and caregivers. Roberts led the group through a comprehensive series of warm-ups. When they began to sing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" tentatively and quietly, Roberts cut them off. "Do that again. Louder. You know this," she insisted. And they did. They owimbuwayed wonderfully through the rest of the song and capped off the night with a beautiful rendition of "Edelweiss" and an encore of "Make New Friends." 

Dr. Richardson was so impressed with the preliminary findings that she hopes to conduct a randomized controlled trial to determine whether it might be effective as a prescribed treatment plan. Meanwhile, Driscoll, who once pooh-poohed support groups, now encourages others to join one. "People are transformable. You just need to give yourself over fully to the transformation."