Music helps patients manage pain and improve recovery: Studies

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Transcript

00:00Hold the pain meds, don't be surprised if

00:08your recovery nurse grabs a ukulele instead of a Tylenol.

00:12For the last 16 years that I played music, I've probably played for about 2,000 patients

00:19already. I've been counting on my finger how many weeks and how many patients a week. About

00:262,000 patients. That's a lot. Rod Selesai is a nurse in the recovery unit at

00:31University of California San Diego Health. While following medical protocol with medication

00:36dosages, he is also known to honor a musical request or two.

00:40I always find that music and pain medication works side by side to achieve a really good

00:49level of comfort. Once they got some pain medication, they started to relax and then

00:56when you instill some music in between, then it's actually a different level of comfort

01:05that they experience.

01:06One recent study shows that music not only affects pain tolerance, the genre of music

01:11may also play a significant role. However, as researchers dug further, they found the

01:16genre is more about personal preference. If a patient is calmed by classic rock, then classic

01:20rock is the genre that helps with pain. With all music proven to be positive, what's important

01:26is that the patient enjoys it. Patient Richard Huang welcomed the music therapy.

01:30I was expecting a typical nurse that just comes in and do his or her job. And that's it. And

01:39Rod came in here with a whole different attitude and atmosphere. It kind of stunned me a little

01:48bit, but it actually helped me not think about the pain, but more focus on how to recover.

01:57Studies show when patients choose the music and listen intently, acute pain begins to dole. Acute

02:03pain is felt when pain receptors in a certain part of the body send signals to the brain.

02:08When you play music and they start to tap their hands, maybe move their foot to the beat, and then they

02:17adjust their position into the pillow. You know that it's working because they're trying to find a

02:24position where they could feel more comfortable and let the music sinks in. And that, for me,

02:31including the changes that you see on the monitor about the patient's heart rate and blood pressure,

02:39and the fact that, okay, their breathing is also slowing down. Actually, those are the

02:46physiological signs that tells me that this type of therapy is working.

02:51The exact reasoning between the correlation is still unknown. Some researchers say it may be due to

02:58familiar songs activating more memories and emotions. For Straight Arrow News, I'm Jack Henry.