Is it Music Therapy or Music Medicine; how to tell
Do you know the difference between music therapy and music medicine? In a nutshell, music therapy is active music making between a music therapist and a patient, where a relationship is formed and non-musical goals are met using music therapy, Music medicine is a prescribed, passive intervention. In the case of Surgical Serenity Solutions, the patient going into surgery or another stressful medical/dental procedure, is prescribed or given a therapeutic playlist on cordless headphones. The patient chooses their preferred genre of music.
Music as a healing intervention is getting a lot of attention these days! But some people use the terms interchangeably and they are definitely not the same. Because of all the confusion going on, I decided to make an easy-to-read chart so that you can know immediately which you want to use.
This chart is useful both for medical facilities and patients. Please note that music therapists can also prescribe music medicine especially for patients that they can’t get to in a day’s work.
Click the chart to open the PDF, which you can download if you want.
There is a lot of information here! Please leave a comment if you have any questions at all.
Music with surgery and in the perioperative period has been around for a while now. Binaural beats have also been around for a long time. NOW, we have added binaural beats to one of our existing playlists.
As alway, the headphones are placed on the patient’s head during the preoperative period, after the patient has changed into the surgical gown and had the IV placed. I have seen this happen many, many times and as soon as headphones go on, the patient closes their eyes and exhales a huge sigh of relief, as the soothing therapeutic music begins to wash over them.
When Surgical Serenity Solutions started a few decades ago, the idea was to provide soothing music to the patient who is very anxious. But around that same time, surgeons were beginning to choose music for themselves to play during surgery. There was a widespread myth that patients under anesthesia would NOT hear the surgeon’s music and therefore surgeon’s could choose whatever they wanted, including such “gems” as “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen.
But then, the next afternoon, I was told that I needed a different MRI that would take about 40-50 minutes. Unfortunately, this time, the music was not enough to keep me from suddenly experiencing a miserable attack of claustrophobia. By then, I had been in the hospital over a day with continuous tests and blood drawn and my back and leg were really hurting, in addition to my blood pressure rising more and more depite lots of hydralazine. Another factor I now understand was that the MRI tech did not break the different segments down for me like the others had done. It helps so much when they say “ok, now you’re going to have 7 minutes of this particular sound” and after 7 minutes they actually check in with me and ask how I’m doing. Assuming I’m OK, then they’ll say “now you’re going to have 6 minutes of this specific sound.” That helps me a lot, but this technician just went directly from one sound to the next with no conversation with me.
I finally did go for an outpatient MRI of head and neck about two weeks later and they gave me an Ativan to calm me before hand. In that case, I fell asleep repeatedly in the machine and there was too much artifact for them to see what they needed to see.
Could you actually forget to play music during the Christmas holidays? It’s unlikely I think but you might logically think that it’s only for celebration purposes. In reality, Christmas can be a time for a full range of emotions from jubilation to devastation and everything in between.
You’re having surgery, or a painful, scary, medical/dental procedure! What should you use if you’ve heard about how music can improve your experience and even your results? The clinical research grows by the day and the result are clear. Using music chosen by the patient makes a huge difference.
Music medicine is often defined as listening to music during medical procedures for a relaxing effect. The advantage over music therapy is that it doesn’t require a trained music therapist so it’s less expensive. It can also be used in more diverse situations where a music therapist wouldn’t be allowed, such as surgery.
Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN was my first hospital to use the headphones in their post-cardiac unit and they reported great results! Nurses reported that the patients loved the music and their vital signs stabilized faster and they required less anxiety and pain medication.
The next big hospital that tried my headphones was Cleveland Clinic Florida, on recommendation from the main Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland. I was even invited down to give a Grand Rounds presentation to surgeons and anesthesiologists.
In about 2013 I became acquainter with Dr. Michael Peck, anesthesiologist at Johns Hopkins in Maryland. Dr. Peck was a strong advocate from the beginning and gave me so many wonderful ideas as well as purchasing a “Cloud Kit” product for their surgery department.
When I gave birth three times, I knew that I wanted music to be a part of that experience and that I did NOT want any more medication that I absolutely needed. For that reason, my husband and I took the LaMaze childbirth classes and the last time, the Bradley childbirth classes. I also knew that having soothing and calming music would make it a better experience for everyone and my doctor and nurses were fine with that.
Jump to 2005, I attended a conference in Cancun, Mexico created for professional speakers. It was called “Cancun University” and offered 4 learning tracks to improve our businesses. One of the tracks was called “Product Innovation” and the other was called “Internet Marketing.” The very first day of the product innovation class I had the idea to create preloaded headphones for surgery patients. And within months I had filed for the provisional patent and had created a website with a monthly ezine as well as a blog. For a long time I blogged every single day!