Songs for Silent Suffering: Could Music Help with Postsurgical Pain?

Abstract

1 ISSN 1758-1869 10.2217/PMT.13.65 © 2014 Future Medicine Ltd Pain Manage. (2014) 4(1), 1–3 Despite a fairly long tradition of research focusing on pain, recent studies have shown that patient experiences of moderate-to-severe pain are common after surgery [1], and postsurgical pain remains poorly managed [2]. Adjuvant to analgesics, nonpharmaco logical methods, such as music, can be implemented to alleviate postsurgical pain. It has been stated that a combination of analgesics and music provide improved pain alleviation of up to 23% [3], and this might be one option for preventing chronic pain development. Pain is a complex and always subjective experience that includes physiological, sensory, emotional, cognitive, behavioral and sociocultural components [4,5]. If we properly apply this definition of pain as defined above, we must also manage patients’ pain in a multidimensional way, not only from the point of view of the intensity of pain, but also alleviate distress caused by pain. Music interventions can be used by passively listening to prerecorded music via headphones provided by nursing personnel (music medicine) or as controlled procedures in which patients’ psychological and physiological entities must be considered in relation to sound, rhythm, melody, harmony and tempo. Music can be played actively or passively (music therapy). In this article, we will focus on listening to music as a nursing intervention in pain alleviation in postsurgical patients [6]. The effectiveness of music on pain after surgery has been increasingly investigated during recent years in many patient groups and settings. The effects of music on pain have been tested among infants [7], adolescents [8], adults [9,10] and the elderly [11]. Listening to music to reduce patients’ mild or moderate postoperative pain is an easy intervention and has no adverse effects [12]. It has been established that listening to music after surgery could spare the use of analgesia and limit its adverse effects. Additionally, music triggers positive physiological responses, such as reduced blood pressure and respiratory rates [9,13]. For patients, music provides a healing environment, enhances the quality of their hospital stay and is an integral part of the multimodal regimen administered to patients undergoing surgery [6,14]. In addition, music is found to decrease the severity of postoperative delirium [15]. There are no guidelines for listening to music or administering music therapy. Despite the many positive effects of listening to music, it is possible that it could