We've long known that music can soothe the savage beast, but we
now know that it also helps heal the ravaged body. When people
who are ill are surrounded by the healing arts such as music—as
well as painting, architecture and theater—they feel less pain
and recover more quickly.

Anecdotal evidence from doctors and patients about these
benefits is nothing new, but recently the palliative effects of
exposure to art during recovery have been carefully studied. As
a result, more and more medical schools and hospitals consider
engagement with art to be an essential component of proper
patient care. In fact, according to a survey by the Society for
the Arts in Healthcare, more than 2,500 hospitals invest in arts
programming. Of these, 95 percent use the arts to serve their
patients, 79 percent use the arts to help create a healing
environment, 79 percent employ arts coordinators, and 50
percent partner with community arts agencies.

"There's very good evidence that engaging patients in art and
music is one way to make the burden of illness and periods of
care more tolerable," says Harry Jacobson, M.D., a nephrologist
and vice chancellor for health affairs at Nashville's Vanderbilt
University Medical Center, which brings many forms of art to
patients' bedsides.

Making Music

Neurologist Mark Jude Tramo, M.D., Ph.D., director of Harvard's
Institute for Music and Brain Science in Boston and a faculty
member of the university's Mind/Brain/Behavior Initiative,
explains: "We believe music can cause neurochemical changes in
specific parts of the brain that are related to the body's
feel-good systems—for example, in pain-modulating
neurotransmitters. In addition, music's auditory stimulation of
the brain may cause cells to release endorphins, which suppress
pain, and immunoglobulins, which help fight disease."

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland
report that patients with abdominal surgery experience greater
pain relief when they are given a dose of music along with pain
relievers. And Cleveland Clinic researchers write in the Journal
of Advanced Nursing that long-term pain sufferers (including
people with osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis) experience
significant pain relief from listening to music of their own
choice one hour every day for a week. People in the
music-listening groups also report 19 to 25 percent less
depression compared to the control group. "Our results show
that listening to music has a significant effect on reducing
pain, depression and disability, and on increasing feelings of
power," says lead researcher Sandra Siedlecki.

Case in Point

Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville leads the
pack when it comes to integrating the healing arts into the
patient-care environment. Donna Glassford, director of Cultural
Enrichment there, brings the arts into the complex's four
hospitals. She oversees the Musicians in Residence program and
is working with Musicians on Call, a nonprofit organization
that trains guides to take musicians through hospitals.
Together they will expand the Vanderbilt program: "They are
going to help us bring more and different types of music into
the hospitals and help us to tap into Nashville's music-rich
community," Glassford says.

She currently employs harpist Betty Ashton Andrews, who
performs in the lobby of the adult hospital three days a week.
"It brings a calm to any environment, " says Glassford. "For
example, she plays in the cancer center lobby, where people
wait for chemo. This allays some of the tension. In the
neonatal ward, the music soothes infants and lowers their blood
pressure. "There's also a program called Room Service," she
adds. "We provide bedside concerts in a variety of styles for
patients who want them."

When it comes to healing, music may be just what the doctor
ordered.

Writer: John Mcintosh
©REMEDY, Summer 2007

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