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A dose of music can be a prescription for pain relief. As this ScienCentral News video explains, a new systematic study of music for pain finds that while music won't replace painkillers, it can boost their effectiveness.
Her interest in researching music for pain began when as a nurse on a neurology unit she worked with patients suffering from back pain. "I would bring music into the room -- soft quiet music. Their faces just relaxed ... pretty soon they fell asleep," she says. "I had to tiptoe out of the room and come back an hour or two later to pick up my tape recorder."
Good has been testing music with post-operative patients for more than 15 years. "I found that music does reduce pain up to about 31 percent in my studies in addition to medication," she says.
Now the conclusion of a systematic analysis combining 51 clinical studies is music to her ears. The Cochrane Reviewof Evidence-Based Healthcare found that patients exposed to music rate their pain as less intense and even use lower doses of painkillers.
On a zero to 10 scale, patients reported an average .5 drop in their pain due to music. "It's not a huge amount," Good says, "but that's an average and for some people, it will be more, and for some it will be less." Since music has no side effects, she points out, there's no risk to trying it.
The review found that it didn't matter if patients chose their own music or were prescribed certain music. But Good thinks that for chronic pain like cancer pain, patients are more likely to keep using it if it's music they like.
"We found that music reduced pain, reduced anxiety, reduced depressive symptoms and reduced pain disability," she says.
The study focused on people with chronic non-malignant pain or CNMP, which typically does not go away with traditional treatments. According to the study, the pain can mix with depression, disability, and feelings of powerlessness. "Although frequently prescribed, the usefulness of medications such as opioids, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents, muscle relaxants, neuroleptics and antidepressants, is limited by the adverse side effects," Good and Seidlecki write in the study.
While the Cochrane review cautions that music should not replace traditional primary treatments for pain, Good hopes this evidence will get other healthcare providers to think of music therapy as a complement to traditional treatment.
Aware of Good's findings, her colleague Jane Suresky added music to her own care for her knee replacement surgeries. She says it's helped her to wean off her pain medication and cope with physical therapy. For her first knee replacement, in 2004, she used Good's prescribed music, while for her recent second knee, she purchased an MP3 player and programmed it with her own music. "Having that experience, I was better able to be a more active participant in terms of my own recovery this time," says Suresky. She even listened to her digital music player on the way to the hospital.
"I had to give it up once I got to the pre-operative area," she says, "and I barely turned it over because I wanted it when I was finished."
Both Good and Suresky teach their nursing students about the benefits of music, relaxation and other complementary therapies, "This will be consumer-driven in the future," Good says. "People will start asking for complementary therapies such as music to relieve their pain."
Or like Suresky, they'll just bring their own. Suresky says that the music she uses to treat her pain fits her mood. "If I'm really stressed, I'll probably listen to some classical music ... If I'm going out walking with the walker, and I want to move a little bit more, I put my Cuban music on."
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