Columbus Dispatch: Ohio Couple Takes OhioHealth Music Therapy To Taiwan

Columbus, Ohio is a long way from Taiwan.  For a stroke patient, the distance from where they are now, compared to where they were before the stroke, can seem just as far.

One couple spends part of their time in central Ohio, and several months out of the year in Taiwan.  And what they have learned inside of OhioHealth Music Therapy programs makes it feel so much closer and recovery, as well as support, feel close too.

Dan Kuhn had a stroke back in 2003. He lost control over much of the right side of his body.  His life, as he knew it had changed forever.  Over time, Dan found himself improving thanks to physical therapy.  He also found his way, with his wife by his side inside of OhioHealth music and art therapy programs.

As his wife would travel to Taiwan, and he would visit they noticed something, there were not the same programs for stroke and other neurological issues in their part-time home overseas.

"I wanted to impress upon them, ‘You don’t need to hide under a bushel basket. Don’t hide the light,'" said Mr. Kuhn to Columbus Dispatch reporter JoAnne Viviano.  “You’re people, too. You have rights and wants and needs and fears and everything we all have."

To make these things available to those he saw struggling and looking for outlets like he once did, Dan took as much information as he could from those inside of the therapy programs at OhioHealth and started his own programs in Taiwan.

“People seem to connect to music,” Mrs. Kuhn told the Dispatch. “It can make you feel patriotic. It can make you feel nostalgic. It just can make you feel happy.”

And it is that passion, and want to help others that certainly caught the attention of those at OhioHealth.

"It’s phenomenal," Dr. B.J. Hicks told Viviano. “It’s always a pipe dream for something to blossom like it has in this case.”

To learn more about the therapy programs offered within OhioHealth Neuroscience click here.

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