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A dose of music may be enough to calm your worries before some medical procedures. According to a new study published this week, the level of anxiety of patients who listened to music before receiving anesthesia was reduced as much as that of those who took a mild sedative.
Physicians have gradually begun to turn to the power of music to help patients relax before, during and after major procedures, including surgery, with promising results. A procedure in which music should ideally help is called temporary nerve blockage. Doctors inject a local anesthetic into a nerve region to relieve pain. Patients may be worried about the operation, which is why they usually get a sedative first.
The reasons why doctors and patients wish to avoid using this sedative are so many that it is possible, especially because these drugs can have their own stressful side effects, such as difficulty breathing or, paradoxically, a frenzy and increased agitation. . But according to lead author Veena Graff, anesthesiologist and pain specialist at the University of Pennsylvania's Faculty of Medicine, no research has ever directly compared the use of music to the standard treatment applied to this procedure.
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Their study, published Friday in Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine, recruited 160 relatively healthy patients to undergo a nerve block. Half were randomly badigned to listen to music through noise-canceling headphones, while the others were sedated.
Overall, they found that both groups had experienced a similar decrease in their anxiety (as measured by a short survey conducted by patients) from before to after the procedure. The doctors themselves have also reported no difference in the quality of the procedure.
People who took the sedative, however, were slightly more satisfied with the procedure. And in the music listening group, patients and doctors reported having more difficulty communicating with each other during the procedure, probably because of the ear-loss earbuds.
Nevertheless, the study seems to show that there is no major additional risk to the mental state of people during these procedures if they listen to music instead of taking a sedative. And it could also make some people's experiences before or after an operation a lot less boring, Graff also noted.
"Anyone can take advantage of music rather than premedication; it avoids using drugs for sedation, "she told Gizmodo in an email. "But some people who could benefit even more are people who really do not like the feeling of being sedated; people who have multiple medical problems where sedation could be more harmful to them; or same-day surgeries where patients can recover faster because they have not had a lot of sedation. "
There could even be ways to enhance the calming effect of music. In the study, the team used a song by the British eclectic band Marconi, developed in collaboration with sound therapists and published in 2011, entitled "Weightless". This eight-minute song has been specifically designed to be as relaxing as possible for patients. possible. But since everyone has their own Spotify playlist on their iPhone, playing the patient's favorite song could be more soothing.
"Currently, we live in a world where music is ubiquitous. Many people have smartphones and media players where music is readily available, "Graff said.
For Graff, the best way to truly test and improve the benefits of music in medicine is that hospitals begin to offer it more systematically as an option, in addition to standard pre- and post-operative treatments for pain and inflammation. anxiety. To this end, the Penn Medicine Outpatient Surgery Center now provides disposable headphones to anyone wishing to be scrambled before the procedure.
"I know other institutions are trying to integrate music into their daily practice, but there is still a lot of work to be done in this regard," she said. "I hope that someday it will be a routine option that can be offered to all patients in health facilities."
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