After Surgery Listen
to Music to Relieve Pain - Those Able to Pick the Songs Felt Better -
Less Post Operative Analgesics Relievers
April 24th 2006
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Pick your own
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Patients who listened to music after surgery reported less pain than
others, at the same time music also reduced the need for analgesics.
According to a review in the Cochrane Library, the music’s
pain-relieving benefits were found to be too small to result in fewer
drug-related side effects.
The team, led by surgery Professor M Soledad Cepeda of Javeriana
University School of Medicine in Bogota in Colombia, reviewed the
results of 14 studies in which 489 surgery patients listened to
pre-recorded music. The post-operative patients rated their pain
intensity.
The largest difference in pain reduction between the music and non-music
groups was 0.9, on a scale of zero to 10. The researchers say that the
difference is significant, but small.
The researchers found that the patients that were allowed to choose
their music fared better than those who could not. Music is
non-invasive and inexpensive. Professor Cepeda says “Before we didn’t
know if music worked. Now we know at least for acute postoperative pain
that music decreases analgesic requirements and decreases pain
intensity.”
The reviewers said that five patients would have to be treated with
music to see a reduction in pain and a decrease in analgesic
requirements in one person. In comparison, three patients would have to
be treated with morphine-like drugs to see pain relief in one.
The researchers stress that music should not be the primary pain
reliever. The researchers said “Music should not be considered as a
primary method for pain relief.”
The exact mechanism is unclear, but scientists speculate that the music
distracts or relaxes the patient, offering an analgesic effect. On a
recent Fox News story, Ruth McCaffrey of Florida Atlantic University,
who was not involved in the Cochrane review, said patients say music
gives them a sense of control during a “regimented, in-hospital
recuperation”.
By Dan Wilson
Best Syndication
Books about Pain
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