Music Therapy

Good topic.  Had two unrelated experiences with this recently that echo what your post says.

Today I read an article on natural pain relief.  One of the concepts discussed was distraction through music.  The article sites a Canadian study that showed music effectively reduced children's (ages 4-6) perceptions of pain during injections.  (Japanese researchers showed the simple act of counting backwards from 100 reduced pain from needle sticks in adults.)

My mom recently had an MRI.  There was no pain involved, but she is claustrophobic.  Instead of earplugs they gave her earphones and asked her what music she enjoyed.  Some of the options they suggested were 50s music and 60s music.  Mom told them something from that era would be fine.  She told me they must have hit the wrong button because she got twangy "I beat my wife" music.  (She's not big on country music.)  "I had to listen to that for 45 minutes," she said with a laugh.  Even though she didn't appreciate their choice music for her, she was grateful for the effort to make her more comfortable.  

I wonder if she had been in pain rather than anxious, if she might have found the music irritating.  It's not possible to please everyone's taste in music, but the music style definitely needs to be taken into account.

I can definitely see this being useful as adjunct measure, especially during painful treatments.

BTW, another tear jerker country song related to healthcare is "Skin" by Rascal Flatts.  I still can't listen to it without crying.   But a great song.

Tasha-

Thanks for the comments.  I really like the scenarios you described- I can just imagine pediatric patients dancing to music!  Actually, I know a lot of marathoners who buy music based on the time they want to finish the race- the songs have the right beat per minute to pace a runner to finish in 3 hours or 4 hours or whatever.  

Great ideas- I will have to share your thoughts with my coworkers!

A few scenarios come to mind:

#1, one of my CIs played music to help the client relax.  It was a cancer rehab place (a "heavier" diagnosis place, perhaps), and the music did make the area feel very comfortable/enjoyable for most everyone.

#2, I've heard of another CI who insisted they play music because it adds a distractor into the environment, similar to the "real world."  

#3, we used it multiple times a day on a pediatric internship as a way to motivate the kids to move, have fun, work on coordination, etc.  

#4, I read a research article about auditory cuing for gait training.  They used a certain beats per minute and designed audio tracks to train to.  Pretty cool stuff, just another potential tool for us to use!

None of this is traditional music therapy, but it kind of relates. Either way, music was played for a reason.  There are pros and cons depending on your facility and the patients' preferences.  I think it'd be worth considering, as there are some anecdotal preferences at least.  It'd definitely be interesting to see more research based on the integration of music into physical therapy.