Music for Pain Relief
Live music helped analgesics in spinal rehabilitation
Denis Strigun, Naked Science
According to statistics, more than five million people suffer from spinal diseases in the USA alone. In some cases, they require surgical intervention, but often such operations are complicated by specific pains: afferent nociception pathways pass through the spinal cord. Such patients are forced to undergo additional rehabilitation, which includes taking analgesics, monitoring respiratory function and neurovascular status. At the same time, against the background of pain, they may increase anxiety, develop depression and hypochondria. Therefore, in addition to medical care, people who have undergone spinal surgery often need psychological help.
Music therapy is considered as one of the areas of such assistance that can influence postoperative rehabilitation. It consists in controlled listening or performing of various musical compositions in order to express and modulate emotional states. Past studies have shown that regular listening to music can also reduce anxiety and pain. Nevertheless, the possibilities of music therapy in the rehabilitation of patients with spinal diseases have not been studied enough. In addition, it is unclear whether the effect of using live music and audio recordings differs.
In the new work, specialists from Mount Sinai Medical Center and the Louis Armstrong Music Center conducted an experiment with 60 patients who underwent anterior, posterior or combined fusion (fusion of vertebrae with a transplant). The authors divided the volunteers into two groups: within 72 hours after the operation, both received standard care. Additionally, the participants of the experimental group underwent an individual 30-minute session of music therapy, during which they listened to compositions in live performance, sang and tapped rhythms for relaxation or catharsis, and also engaged in visualization and breath control under the guidance of psychotherapists.
Then all the subjects assessed pain on a ten-point scale, filled in the scale of kinesiophobia (fear of movement), depression and anxiety scales. The results showed that after the music therapy session, the subjective level of pain in the experimental group decreased on average by more than one point (from 6.20 to 5.09) compared to the beginning of the experiment. In the control group, the indicator increased at the time of testing: from 5.20 to 5.87 points. The levels of anxiety, depression and kinesiophobia in both groups changed slightly. According to the authors, it was possible to achieve improvements in the experimental group, among other things, thanks to a personalized approach.
Subjective level of pain before and after the experiment in the control and experimental groups (from an article in The American Journal of Orthopedics)
"Pain is a subjective and personal phenomenon and requires an individual attitude. Certified, licensed music therapists can adapt the treatment program to the patient's preferences and his experience of pain," said study co—author Joanne Loewy.
The article is presented in The American Journal of Orthopedics.
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03.04.2017