The POWER of Music as Therapy - "Musicogenic Eutherapeia" - Part 2
by Dr. Arthur W. Harvey, B.S., M.M., D.M.A.
Music has been shown to be effective in positively affecting physiological stress parameters such as pulse rate, blood pressure, respiration, galvanic skin resistance (GSR), and electroencephalography (EEG). According to Weber, et. al, "Music can reduce stress hormones (ACTH, cortisone) and increase the emotional neurohormone, beta endorphin, acting as a protection mechanism against emotional excitation" (20).
Ralph Spintge, M.D., co-founder and currently President of the International Society for Music in Medicine (ISMIM), writing in Applications of Music in Medicine (21), reports that levels of neurohormones and neurotransmitters such as dopamine, noradrenaline, endogenous morphines, enkephalin and phenylethylmine can be elevated through music.
In summarizing the physiological impact of music in medical treatment, determined by both his research and clinical work as an anesthesiologist, Spintge is quoted, " ...Physiological parameters like heart rate, arterial blood pressure, salivation, skin humidity, blood levels of stress hormones like adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), prolactin, human growth hormone (HGH), cortisol, betaendorphine, show a significant decrease under anxiolytic music compared with usual pharmacological premedication."
"EEG studies demonstrated sleep induction through music in the preoperative phase. The subjective responses of the patients are most positive in about 97 percent of the 59,000 evaluated, These patients state that music is a real help to them to relax in the preoperative situation and during surgery in regional anesthesia."
As part of a Body Watch PBS health series, show number 14 featured Music and Health, and included a section exploring the medical applications of music. Impressive evidence of music's POWER is illustrated by the effects of heart beat music on newborns. The Baby Go-To-Sleep tapes were designed by Terry Woodford utilizing traditional children's songs. A second approach, Transition tapes, developed by anesthesiologist Dr. Fred Swartz, utilized a different genre of music, a style generically called New Age music, and research has also been shown it to have a POWERful effect on babies.
On the other end of the life span, music has been shown to have a POWERful effect upon senior adults diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. In workshops and courses I play a brief media example of a music therapist working with a man in an advanced stage of Alzheimer's, and in less than one minute is seen one of the most vivid examples of the POWER of music I have in my vast video library, as he is transformed from chaos to coherence in front of our eyes.
Mitchell Gaynor M.D. in his book Sounds of Healing (22), cites evidence that music has therapeutic POWER involving the effects of music on a variety of physiologic functions and parameters. They include:
..Reduced anxiety, heart and respiratory rates. When forty patients who had suffered recent heart attacks were exposed to "relaxing music", then assessed for heart rate, respiratory rate, and measurable states of anxiety, results indicated statistically significant reductions in all three measures.
...Reduced cardiac complications. Patients admitted to a coronary care unit after suffering heart attacks, if exposed to music for two days, had fewer complications than those who were not.
.. Lowered blood pressure, heart rate and noise-sensitivity in heart surgery patients. A 1997 study reported that the use of music intervention with cardiac surgery patients during the first postoperative day decreased noise annoyance, heart, and systolic blood pressure.
...Increased immune cell messengers. A 1993 report at Michigan State University disclosed that levels of interleukin-I (an immune-cell messenger molecule that helps to regulate the activity of other immune cells) increased by 12.5 to 14 percent when subjects listened to music for fifteen-minute periods. Subjects who listened to music they chose exhibited up 10.25 percent lower levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that can depress the immune system when produced in excess.
....Boost in natural opiates. In an experiment done at the Addiction Research Center in Stanford University in California, subjects listened to various kinds of music, including marching bands, spiritual anthems, and movie soundtracks. They reported feelings of euphoria, leading researchers to suspect that the joy of music is mediated by the opiate chemicals know as endorphins --the brain's natural painkillers. To test this theory, researchers injected listeners with nalexone, which blocks opiate receptors. The listeners experienced reduced sensations of pleasure, suggesting that certain types of music can boost endorphins, which have other health benefits, including a stronger immune system.
A music therapist at Duke University Hospital, Cheryl Benze, has found, while working with more than 1,000 patients annually for the past 18 years, that music therapy primarily helps patients by reducing stress and pain, crediting the listening to music with triggering the production of serotonin, which causes pleasure. A breakthrough study with a group of 61 retirees in Florida in 1998 taking group keyboard lessons over a period of two 10-week semesters found that music making had a significant effect on increasing levels of human growth hormone (HGH).
Part 1: The POWER of Music as Therapy
Part 3: Oncology Applications of Music
Part 4: Wellness Benefits of Music
Part 5: Emotional Expression through Music, and References
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