| For many years now I have worked in a full-service | | | | depressed patients and seeing their faces light up |
| medical - surgical hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. There | | | | when they hear "You've Got a Friend" or "I'll Be |
| is not a single area of this hospital (or any hospital) | | | | Loving You, Always" is something that I wouldn't |
| that could not benefit from having music incorporated | | | | miss for the world.I also particularly enjoy helping |
| in some specific well-thought-out way. And I don't | | | | people pick out their music for surgery and have put |
| mean just having MUSAK piped in! I believe that most | | | | together three tapes: one for the waiting area, one |
| people today find MUSAK more offensive than | | | | for the operating room and one for the recovery |
| enjoyable. You've all heard of the law of diminishing | | | | room. People tell me time after time that the process |
| returns? When pre-recorded piped-in music was first | | | | of making the tape distracted them from worrying |
| invented everyone thought it was great: soothing, | | | | about the outcome as much as they might have |
| relaxing, calming. | | | | otherwise. Having the tape in the recovery area let |
| Now, most people detest it and find that it makes | | | | them know, for sure, that they had survived the |
| their blood pressure go up and their tempers flare. In | | | | surgery and were listening to the music that they |
| a hospital, the ideal is to use personalized music, | | | | had chosen. One lady felt that her tape saved her life |
| offered to patients as well as those in the waiting | | | | because the recovery room was so noisy and the |
| areas through new or freshly sanitized headphones, | | | | nurses were rattling papers and talking so loudly! The |
| much like those that are offered on international | | | | benefits of music during surgery are |
| flights. There could be either a tape or CD library | | | | well-documented, but you must ask the surgeon |
| available or audio equipment embedded in the seats | | | | enough time in advance that they can do their own |
| to plug into for a choice of music selections.This not | | | | research if necessary.In conclusion, there is no an |
| only allows people to relax with the kind of music | | | | area of the hospital where music cannot be beneficial. |
| they enjoy, but it also blocks out the disconcerting | | | | If you find that you or a loved one or friend must be |
| sounds of overhead paging, ambulances arriving, and | | | | in the hospital, please consider taking your portable |
| people calling out, crying, etc. There are literally | | | | CD player or MP3 player. If you listen to your |
| hundreds of studies documenting the effectiveness | | | | favorite soothing, comforting music, chances are that |
| of music in surgery, pain management, childbirth, | | | | you'll get out of there sooner. I'll be thinking about |
| oncology, chemo and radiation. In the area of | | | | you!Helping people to use music for Healing and |
| Behavioral Health, or Psychiatry as it used to be | | | | Wellness. Dr. Cash stresses the use of music for |
| called, the benefits of using music with patients who | | | | health, learning, motivation, relaxation, energy building, |
| are depressed, anxious, or chemically dependent on | | | | or well-being. She is known internationally for her |
| drugs or alcohol, are enormous. This is something that | | | | work with music and pregnancy, surgery, addictions, |
| I do every day and the rewards are one of the | | | | and Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Cash can be reached |
| great joys of my profession. Playing the piano for | | | | through Healing Music Enterprises. |