Music soothes the pain of surgery

“Currently music is not used routinely during surgery to help patients in their post-operative recovery”, Meads said in a statement, pointing to widespread scepticism among health professionals.

Lead researcher Dr Catherine Meads – who listened to Pink Floyd during a recent hip operation – said it equated to “a fairly good dose of painkillers”. They feel more comfortable and satisfied, thus, music reduce and soothes pain they have.

While they have found out that music therapy can reduce anxiety, stress and pain, they found out that it does not have any effect when it comes to the length of patient’s hospital stay.

Jenny Hole, Co-Author and Medical Student at Queen Mary University of London, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, comments: “There is now sufficient evidence to demonstrate music should be available to all patients undergoing surgery”.

She said the type of music probably depended on the patient enjoyed and found soothing, be it Chinese, classical or easy listening, but warned it should be listened to low and on headphones so it did not annoy the patient in the next bed.

Since musical tastes vary, one option would be to ask patients to bring their own music in the patient information sheets they receive before surgery or offer a choice of standard options, such as in-flight systems.

According to a team of researchers from Queen Mary University of London, listening to music has a positive effect to surgery patients.

The best outcomes occurred when music was played before rather than after an operation. “We hope this study will now shift misperceptions and highlight the positive impact music can have”.

They didn’t directly study the effects of music on pain but collated the results of 72 different studies that did.

The only caveat: “Care needs to be taken that music does not interfere with the medical team’s communication”, Meads said.

The systematic review involved almost 7,000 patients in total and the findings confirmed, for the first time, the link between music in the operating theatre and a significant reduction in postoperative pain, postoperative anxiety and the need for postoperative pain relief medication.

For the team that just published findings on the impact of music in a surgical setting, the next step is to test conduct tests in real life. However a “music pillow” where a patient could have an ear close to the music, with the other trained on the doctor, could be the solution. She also finds it surprising to know that music works even when under anesthetic. “However, it’s taken pulling together all the small studies on this subject into one robust meta-analysis to really prove it works”.