Music and medications to calm patients' nerves – study

According to US researchers, listening to the "most relaxing song in the world" before an operation could be as effective in soothing the nerves of patients as drugs.

The song, written to reduce anxiety, blood pressure and heart rate, was interpreted as a sedative in a study of 157 people.

But the patients said that they would have preferred to choose their own music.

And noise-canceling headphones made communication more difficult, the doctors said.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, writing in a BMJ journal, now want to determine whether the type of music and the way it is played by patients affect the results.

Trial patients either received the midazolam or played the "Weightless" song of the British group Marconi Union for three minutes, while receiving an anesthetic to numb a region of the body.

Anxiety of the reduced patient of the same amount in both groups.

Feeling anxious before surgery can affect recovery because of the stress hormones produced by the body.

"Pleasure trails"

But medications that reduce anxiety can have side effects and require constant monitoring from doctors, said researchers at the University of Pennsylvania.

Musical medicine, on the other hand, was "virtually safe and cheap".

Veena Graff, badistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, said: "Music illuminates the emotional space of the brain, the reward system, and the pathways of the brain. pleasure.

"It means that patients can be in their own world, they can be comfortable and have total control."

– BBC