Hospital and clinic settings often echo with the sounds of long hallways, pagers, and I.V. carts rattling from room to room. Fresh air and blue sky views aren't always available to all sick patients, the sound of music can and should be incorporated into the patient's environment whenever possible. Why you ask?
Music is more than a delight to the ears (assuming you enjoy the tune). Studies have shown music to be beneficial to the healing process of patients. Research has also showed that certain music can help Parkinson's Disease patients regain some movement. In a bulletin on the White House Mini-Conference on Aging and Music Therapy, 1994, Michael Thaut, AoA Grant Project Director of Colorado State Univeristy said that the results of his music therapy study showed "After three weeks, the patients with Parkinson's disease demonstrated longer stride length and improved gait velocity by an average of 25 percent. These data validate the effectiveness of auditory rhythm to improve gait through the rhythmic coupling of auditory and motor systems." Simply stated, the patients were able to move better and easier.
In the same study, the researchers found not just any music would bring on a positive reaction from the patients. The music used in music therapy had to be stimulating and familiar to the patient. In addition, it was found that that classical music and hymns helped patients in his Alzheimer special care unit become more relaxed, as the music helped recover long-term memories.
Another example is the work done by Kristen Stewart at the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. Kristen Stewart is the clinical director and music therapist at the medical centers Louis and Lucille Armstrong Music Therapy Program. She specializes in working with premature babies, children and patients with trauma. In a story in USA Today, Kristen Stewart was described she held a small wooden instrument filled with beads, which when tilted sounded like gentle ocean waves crashing on the shore. She held this instrument next to the bed of a set of premature twins. All these babies heard before was the normal sounds of the NICU, with monitors, beeps and other hospital sounds. When Kristen uses music therapy with the babies, the babies sleep, calm down and are able to feed. In fact a lot of hospitals are using music therapy to help patients calm down, relax, reduce blood pressure, reduce pain levels and heal faster.
Claudius Conrad, a senior surgical resident at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston lead a study about the changes that occur in the body when one is listening to music. Published in the December 2007 journal Critical Care Medicine, the study looked at patients in the ICU who were on breathing machines. When the patients listened to Mozart piano sonatas, their stress hormones and cytokines, decreased, while the growth hormones, responsible for metabolic regulation, increased. The result was lower blood pressure, lowered heart rates, and less medication necessary for sedation. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-06-16-music-healing_N.htm )
Introduction to "Music Therapy"
According to the American Music Therapy Association, the history of music therapy goes back as far as the writings of Plato and Aristotle. Back in World War I and World War II it was proven that the patients in the veterans hospitals had positive physical and emotional responses to the music played for them by volunteers. Soon the first music therapy degree program was founded at Michigan State University in 1944. Since then the American Music Therapy Association has provided information and research in their Journal of Music Therapy, Music Therapy Perspective publications.
Music therapy isn't just used in hospitals. It is also used in nursing homes, schools, psychiatric facilities and other places where individuals need both the emotional and intellectual stimulation that comes from music.
Pavorotti and Puccini, Perfect For Pulmonary!
The BBC News in June, 2009 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8112247.stm) reported a story about Dr. Luciano Bernardi from Italy's Pavia University. He asked 24 healthy volunteers to listen to five different pieces of classical music, while he monitored their physical reactions. Selections included Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Puccini's Turandot, Bach's cantata No. 169, Va Pensiero from Nabucco, and Labiam Nei Lieti Calici from La Traviata. Dr. Bernardi found that with every gradual increase in the song, each crescendo, the volunteers' bodies reacted with a narrowing of blood vessels, and an increase in both blood pressure and heart rate. As the song decreased, the diminuendos, the bodies relaxed, blood pressure went down and their heart rates slowed down. Chief executive of Music in Hospitals, a UK-based charity that brings live music into hospitals and care facilities, Diana Greenman, says "We have seen enormous benefits in people who have had strokes or heart attacks. The power of music is just incredible. Music is holistic, but I hear time and time again of stroke patients who suddenly are able to move in time to the music after previously being paralyzed."
Bringing Music Therapy into Your Hospital
As a nurse you have a natural understanding for the healing process that begins just by the touch of your hand. Medicine and heroics save lives every day, but when a patient is laying in bed, your kindness, the sound of your voice, your touch, all come into play for the emotional well being of your patients. This natural gift is part of nature, not something that comes out of a laboratory or a pharmacy. Music is much the same. The natural rhythms found in music interact with the emotional parts of our brains and, for those who are ill, can help bring about faster healing and a more pleasant, if that's at all possible for someone in a hospital, experience. Lonely geriatric patients find peace when listening to songs of their youth, recalling memories of dances and laughter with family and friends. Sick children will naturally respond to happy, playful music because it triggers the play center in their mind and improves their mood. And for staff, having positive and pleasant music playing makes for a more positive work environment overall.
As an advocate for the wellbeing of your patients, it may be a good idea to see if you can help bring in a music therapy program into your hospital. If this is beyond your scope, helping a patient by turning on a radio or CD player in their room may be just enough.
Article © 2009 My Nursing Uniforms.com / Young Lion Incorporated
Image courtesy of nadworks.
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