Playing music during biopsy helps patients to reduce anxiety: Study

Zee Media Bureau

New York: A new study has found that playing music during biopsy for breast cancer diagnosis and treatment may help reduce pre-operative anxiety in patients.

Researchers from the University Hospitals Case Medical Centre in the US Cinducetd a two year study to learn the effect of live and recorded music on the anxiety of 207 women undergoing a biopsy for breast cancer diagnosis and treatment.

They also presented patients in the experimental groups with a live song performed by a music therapist at bedside or a recorded song played on an iPod through earphones.

Participants in both live and recorded-music groups experienced a significant reduction in pre-operative anxiety of 42.5 per cent and 41.2 per cent, respectively, when compared to the control group.

Jaclyn Bradley Palmer, Music Therapist at the University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center, US, said "During our two-year trial, we gained information on potential benefits, challenges and methods of facilitating a surgical music therapy program".

A music therapist may be highly beneficial in the surgical setting, and music therapy may be a means of enhancing the quality of patient care in collaboration with perioperative nurses, as per researchers.

Palmer added that as an interdisciplinary surgical staff member, the music therapist may help nurses achieve patient-related goals of anxiety reduction, pain management, effective education and satisfaction. And by having professional music therapists facilitate surgical music therapy programs, nursing workloads also may be reduced.

The finding was published in the journal AORN provided insights into the impact of implementing a music therapy programme for surgical patients.

(With IANS inputs)