Music therapy in critical care: indications and guidelines for intervention.
Have you ever been in a hospital, as a patient, for any reason? If so, you know that a hospital is no place to get a rest. A hospital is a noisy place with ambulances coming in and out, overhead paging of doctors and hospital information and patients and families conversing or perhaps in pain.
Then there are family members and visitors out in the halls, laughing, crying and talking loudly. For people who are in ICU or PACU, it’s even harder because the patient feels so bad and is much sicker than they’ve ever been.
Music is such an easy intervention, especially headphones with a choice of favorite music. And yet most hospitals still have the ubiquitous TV up on the wall with bad news, soap operas, etc. blasting away! It really is quite inhumane I think!
Just came across this bit of medical/nursing research on music in the hospital and wanted to share it with you immediately!
Crit Care Nurse. 1999 Jun;19(3):35-41.
University of Iowa, College of Nursing, Iowa City, USA.
Abstract
Music therapy is an effective intervention for critically ill patients for such purposes as anxiety reduction and stress management. The therapy is readily accepted by patients and is an intervention patients thoroughly enjoy. The MAIT is one resource that nurses caring for critically ill patients can use to implement music therapy in clinical practice. Patients can be given the opportunity to select a musical tape they prefer and to negotiate with the nurse for uninterrupted music-listening periods. Allowing patients control over music selection and providing uninterrupted time for music listening gives the patients an enhanced sense of control in an environment that often controls them.