Music Therapy Offers Soothing
Help for the Body and Spirit
By Erin Andersen
"The aim and final reason of all music should be nothing else but the glory of God and the refreshment of spirit." -- Johann Sebastian Bach A stroke left her unable to speak. The Christmas carols emanating from the crowd of patients around the piano brought back memories. Unconsciously, she opens her mouth and the lyrics tumble out -- audibly, understandably. "It was the most remarkable experience, teaching someone to sing so they can talk," Dr. Kathryn Hajj recalled of her patient at Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital.
The story depicts just one of the many miracles physicians, nurses, therapists and chaplains have witnessed since starting a music therapy program at the Lincoln hospital.
Music can soothe a racing heart. It can strengthen a weakened immune system. It can lower a soaring blood pressure. It can reduce the pain that narcotics cannot touch. It can restore hope. It can smooth the passage into the afterlife. It can mend a failing spirit.
"Music goes where words cannot many times," said Deforia Lane, director of music therapy at University Hospital Health System and associate director of the Ireland Cancer Center in Cleveland.
Music therapy has been around for 50 years. Its benefits first were discovered by physicians and nurses in veterans hospitals who noticed that soldiers returning from war seemed less shell-shocked and more compliant when music was included in their daily medical regime.
However, it has been only within the last 25 years that hospitals, care centers and even prisons have started incorporating music therapy in medical, rehabilitative and mental health treatment programs, Lane said.
A noted authority on music therapy, Lane will speak before a standing-room only crowd at BryanLGH Medical Center East on Sunday afternoon. The hospital plans to make videotapes of the program available to the public.
Lane's research into music therapy began 23 years ago. Then, in 1984, the American Cancer Society asked her to take music therapy into the bone marrow transplant unit at the Ireland Cancer Center. "Within six months, the results of us being on the floor were so positive -- so remarkable -- that I was called into the head of the cancer center's office and asked: How much money do you want and when can you come to work?" Lane recalled in a telephone interview from her Cleveland office. "I call that divine intervention. I mean that sincerely; it was a miracle." Since then the cancer center's music program has grown to four music therapists plus six yearly music therapy interns. It is a line item in the center's annual budget, with supplemental funding from grants.
At Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital, the music therapy program is in its infancy. The hospital is still waiting to hear about two requests for $20,000 in grants to fund its proposed adult and pediatric prescriptive music programs. Meanwhile, Madonna has used local donations to give the program a jump start.
And members of the Madonna Music Committee have used prescriptive music as a starting point for a much broader, all-encompassing music program for patients, their families and staff. They offer live entertainment in the dining room and monthly concerts in the chapel.
"We see music in a much more holistic way," Chaplain Vikki O'Hara said. "We want to use music as a healing environment for the whole institution." And from what O'Hara and other Madonna staff have seen within a few months, they have no doubt music therapy goes where no medication or surgery can. It lifts the spirit, helps the psyche and helps people find more meaning in their lives.
Madonna social worker/case manager Nancy Hall leads the new hand chime choir at Madonna. Members include 100-year-old and 97-year-old patients, severely disabled youngsters and adults who physically cannot grasp the chimes in their hands but find ways to lift them and healthy staff members.
One member, a man with Alzheimer's disease, used to spend day after day crying alone in the hospital chapel. Now he beams from ear to ear as he rings the chimes and remembers the music of his youth -- the music he plays on his hand chime.
"The group wants to take its show on the road," Hall said. Prescriptive music is different. Using music therapist Janalea Hoffman's music of 50-60 beats per minute, the synthesized instrumental sounds relax patients, lower their heart rates and blood pressure and have even reduced pain. Madonna used prescriptive music with a 73-year-old woman who was in the final stages of lung disease and emphysema. She was in extreme pain and discomfort and medication no longer gave her relief.
Within minutes of listening to the music, the woman fell asleep for the first time in days, O'Hara said. The music stayed on for the remainder of the woman's life. And during that time, the woman no longer needed increased dosages of medication. She remained comfortable with no visible signs of physical pain, respiratory distress or anxiety, O'Hara said.
Hall recently recommended the prescriptive music tapes to a friend who suffers from fibromyalgia and had not found any relief after seeing four different doctors. "She said it (the tapes) was the first thing that had helped," Hall said. "It encouraged her enough to make an appointment with a specialist and get in Madonna's pool (therapy) program. It allowed her to say, "Yes, I can do this.' It allowed her to take control over what was happening to her. It gave her a different perspective and viewpoint." But music therapy is not a cure, O'Hara said. "We see it as just another component of a complete program which treats the whole person -- body, mind and spirit," O'Hara said.
At University Hospitals Health System, Lane uses music therapy in whatever ways patients prefer -- helping them to sleep, reducing pain, coping with depression, decreasing anxiety or just finding inner peace. "We meet the person where they are and where they perceive their needs to be," Lane said.
Some people learn to play an instrument while at the Ireland Cancer Center. Others write songs. "There can be some poignant and some angry moments," Lane said. Sometimes patients aren't quite sure what they want from music. In those times, they invite Lane to sing for them. A spiritual person, Lane likes to sing hymns.
"It is surprising how once I start singing the tears flow, the memories come back," Lane said. "Music can be cathartic and therapeutic." It also can give a terminally ill patient permission to die. Lane told the story of David, a patient who had asked his family and Lane to sing until he drew his last breath. "We gathered and sang for a good 30 or 40 minutes," Lane said. "In one of the final songs we were singing there was a verse: "I will serve him. I will serve him.' On that verse the breaths stopped. His wife turned to me and said how appropriate it was for him to be ushered into heaven on the wings of that song. David was the type of person who wanted to serve and be of value to other people." Value is what Lane finds in music.
"A lot of people want to know: What can this do for me? Where is the cure in this? How is it medically necessary? But if you have a mother, a brother or a child who is ill and for a few moments music makes a difference, you wouldn't ask that question," Lane said. "Music is an art and it is a science. And they are not mutually exclusive."
To learn more about music therapy, contact the American Music Therapy Association, 455 Colesville Road, Suite 1000, Stover Spring, MD 20910; (301) 589-3300; or check out the Web site at www.musictherapy.org
Music without words means leaving behind the mind. And leaving behind the mind is meditation.
Meditation returns you to the source. And the source of all is sound. — Kabir
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