In the last 15 or 20 years, so much has been published in medical journals about the benefits for the patient of music during surgery. When the patient is listening to music that incorporates rhythmic entrainment, through headphones, wonderful things begin to happen! My colleagues in music therapy were very insistent that I offer some kind of choice in types of music to the patients. Initially, the playlist was 50 minutes of classical piano music. Of course I thought it was beautiful but not everyone likes classical music. So, o.”ur second playlist was Smooth Jazz. This was a playlist put together by jazz musicians friends of mine and it does incorporate rhythmic entrainment. Then my friend Jonathan Goldman offered me a playlist of his beautiful New Age music that utilizes rhythmic entrainment.
Finally, I decided that the best way to disseminate all of the information about the power of music with surgery would be to write a book. In December of 2019 I published “Having Surgery? Using Music to reduce Anxiety and Pain Perception.” I am doing the official “launch” of this book on January 27, Mozart’s birthday! For a 3-day period you’ll be able to get my book for $1.99!!
Here is what a Vice-President of a hospital wrote:
Dr Cash’s book on surgery
It is rare to find a book that is as beneficial to clinicians as it is to patients and their caregivers. Dr. Alice Cash’s Music for Surgery & Recovery: A Sound Approach to Reduced Anxiety and Faster Healing is such a work. Laying out findings from her years of dedication to this field, Dr. Cash combines a wealth of useful advice, instructive and inspiring personal and patient stories, and perspectives on research. The result? A clear demonstration of how the experience of music correctly applied around the time of surgery and in other stressful situations can enhance resilience and improve both clinical outcomes and quality of life.
As head of clinical research, I worked with hospital administration for over two decades. The possibilities of music decreasing pain perception, especially in this time of the opioid crisis, and of increasing patient satisfaction, which is critically important to reimbursement, is especially exciting.
The organization of the book – moving from well-grounded practical advice for a wide variety of clinical scenarios to the history and science of music medicine to ways in which music can be integrated into medical environments – provides an engaging way both of going deeply into practice and theory and of finding needed concepts and specifics quickly and easily. Kudos to Dr. Cash!
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