Music After Surgery: PACU benefits

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CystoscopySSS

Music in the PACU

Have you used music after surgery in the PACU?  The surgery is over but the patient is still under anesthesia and just beginning to emerge.  The headphones are still on the patient’s head but is the music actually help the patient?  YES it is!  Based on the hundreds of people who have used the headphones, we have learned that the music can:

  • reduce nausea and vomiting
  • provide orientation to time and place, after being disoriented under anesthesia
  • allow for a faster release from the Post Anesthesia Care Unit
  • decrease perception of pain and pain med requirements
  • Help patient get back to the life before surgery was needed

Are these significant benefits?  You bet they are!  The thing about having the Surgical Serenity music playing from the moment you arrive at the hospital on the morning of surgery, is that it begins slowing down your rapid breathing (anxiety) and your rapid heartbeat (anxiety).  When you are anxious, your breathing becomes very shallow and rapid.  You feel like you might go into a “fight or flight” response.  How does the music slow down these involuntary responses?  It does it through a process called “Rhythmic Entrainment.”  This is the same phenomenon (from physics) that makes you clap your hands when you hear rhythmic music.  The process also works with slow, rhythmic music to calm you down by synchronizing your heartbeat and breathing to the pulse of the slow, rhythmic music.

healthy resting heartbeat entrains to music through headphones

Patient enjoying serene music that entrains with healthy resting heartbeat

When you go into surgery, the music helps KEEP the heart and breathing slow and steady, so you need less anesthesia during the surgery.  When this music is coming through our cordless headphones, patient doesn’t hear the surgeon’s conversation or music, which is often faster than healthy resting heartbeat.

By the time the patient gets to the recovery room, or PACU, the heartbeat and breathing remain slow and steady, but as the patient wakes up, the music helps to orient them to where they are and reminds them, in a positive way, of what just happened!  This is just a birdseye view of what happens when the patient uses our Surgical Serenity Solutions headphones during their surgery or other medical/dental procedure. To purchase these for your PACU or ASC, go to www.SurgicalSerenitySolutions.com/hospitalheadphones.

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