August 2025 - Surgical Serenity Solutions

Music Medicine and Innovation

Music Medicine and innovation are always on my mind. I guess it’s because I’m always trying to find new ways to increase my own health and wellness…and I am a lifelong musician. I’ve always known what music can do for me in terms of calming and comforting me. From earliest childhood I’ve loved music and the way it makes me feel.

The young Cash family 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.

In the mid-nineties I was told that I needed back surgery for a bulging disk, probably the result of sitting at the piano for many hours a day since childhood. Fear took hold of me as I knew I would need general anesthesia for back surgery and I had never experienced that. Luckily, I had a wonderful neurosurgeon here in Louisville, KY, Dr. Wayne Villaneuva, who was totally open to my bringing tapes and a Walkman into the OR. I had headphones attached to the Walkman and Dr. Villaneuva taped it to the operating table near my head. I spent the night before the surgery creating 3 cassette tapes with the kind of music I thought/felt would be best for the pre-surgery, surgery, and post-op periods and had a friend with me who changed the tapes at the appropriate times.

At my first post-surgery visit, the neuro-surgeon said that he believed that my music had greatly contributed to one of the most successful surgeries and recoveries that he had ever done. Of course we were all very thrilled to hear this, and, as a therapist and speaker on the healing power of music i wanted to find a way to desseminate this information to all potential surgery patients.

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!

It’s been a wonderful journey and I’m so grateful that I’ve been able to help 100’s of patients, children-elderly, to get through scary and painful surgeries and other procedures and tests, using our 5 playlists and either our headphones or theirs with our app downloaded onto it.

If you’re interested in getting the pre-loaded headphones, go here.

If you’re a hospital or clinic interested in the headphones or MP3 players, go here.

If you’re interested in our app with a choice of 5 therapeutic, hour-long playlists, go here.

The app is our least expensive option. Less than $10 per playlist.

Whatever your choice is, you don’t have to go through surgery in a state of fear and anxiety. Listening to anyone of these 5 playlists will ease the process and increase your chances of a positive result. Let me know if I can help in any way!

Soothing music through headphones is SO good for joint replacements!

Joint replacements are happening around the world, all day, every day! The Baby Boomers are seriously in need of new joints! So far I have worked with many, many patients having knee and hip replacements and a few having ankle and shoulder replacements!

One of the things that differentiates joint replacement surgery from other surgeries is that most patients are not under general anesthesia. I am not an MD but, having worked with many MDs and medical specialists of all kinds, I know that in joint replacement surgery, the patient is sedated so that they don’t really feel anything but they can still communicate with the surgeon.

Lower body surgeries are more apt to have a regional anesthesia or block but it is up to the patient and surgeon.

In either case, anxiety will inevitably be present and beginning the therapeutic playlist in pre-surgery is highly recommended. If the patient is have a regional anesthetic and sedation, the surgeon can actually talk to the patient during the procedure and ask them to “wiggle their toes (for example)” Even when the music is playing the patient can hear the doctor addressing them. And the doctor can always briefly lift the earpiece of headphone.

In the case of general anesthesia, again, starting the music pre-surgery is highly recommended because the waiting period right before surgery is always full of anxiety. Even during the surgery the patient benefits from the music through. While the patient is not consciously listening to the music, their body is still responding positively to the slow, steady pulse of our music, through the process of rhythmic entrainment.

And many patients have told me that waking up to the same beautiful music they were listening to when they drifted off is extremely comforting and orienting to them. Makes sense.

SO, if your hospital to surgery center is ready to tap into the power of therapeutic music for their patients, here is the link to go to! Our 5 therapeutic playlists can be preloaded on either cordless headphones or MP3 players which come with earbuds.

Whichever one you choose, you can be assured that your patients will have a much better experience with their procedure and will sing the praises of your facility!