Music can benefit Patients

Listening to music improves patients’ recovery from surgery and should be available to everyone who has an operation, suggests new UK research.

For their study, Dr. Meads and colleagues analyzed 72 randomized controlled trials involving nearly 7,000 patients undergoing surgery.

Music is one of the easiest, safest, cheapest and least invasive interventions that healthcare workers can deliver, and at great benefit to patients.

Meads speculated that the songs might help patients before the operation if they were feeling anxious or afterward for reducing pain.

The effects may have been psychosomatic too, as patients needed less pain medication and reported less pain compared with controls.

If patients got to pick their own playlist, pain and the need for pain medication was only reduced more than when there was no music choice.

Surprisingly, even listening to music while under general anaesthetic reduced patients’ levels of pain, although the effects were larger when patients were conscious.

The authors of the report suggested that patients could listen to the music by either headphones or through music pillows. Different trials tested music before, during or after operations or a combination, and when patients were awake or anesthetised.

Dr Catherine Meads, who led the research, said: “The lack of uptake is often down to the scepticism of professionals as to whether it genuinely works, and of course issues of budget and the integration into daily practice”.

Dr Martin Hirsch of Queen Mary University of London, co-author of the study, said that it has been well-known since the time of Florence Nightingale that listening to music has a positive impact on patients.

The sampling also covered all types of procedures except surgery on the brain or central nervous system.

Even though the general perception of music in operating theatres is generally shaped by the movies we see – where smooth music is always played in the background – researchers agree that this decision should be made in agreement with the entire team, after they have taken into account both the benefits and the risks.

The results come after a meta-analysis of several smaller studies confirmed a belief that has been held since the very earliest days of surgical procedure.

“A drug with similar effects might generate substantial marketing”, he added. The researchers noted that there was no difference detected in length of hospital stay, although few studies measured it. None of the studies looked at the effects of music on infections, wound healing rate or costs, either.