I can’t say enough good things about Dr. Deforia Lane. Actually, many people feel the same way and I wanted to share with my readers another wonderful article that was written about her. I met her early in my journey toward the field of music medicine. I consider Deforia to be a dear friends as well as a mentor and she is currently using some of my Surgical Serenity Headphones with patients she works with. Thank you Deforia!
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Sweet and soothing sounds fill hospital rooms and hallways as Dr. Deforia Lane hits the piano keys to keep up with her tapping toes.
“Patients don’t expect music when they walk into a hospital,” said Lane, Director of Music Therapy at University Hospital’s Case Medical Center.
Her angelic voice reaches ears from the cancer wing to the rehab facility, ONN’s Harrison Hove reported.
“Music therapy is a field that is growing enormously,” Lane said.
Lane has a gift, whether it’s her welcoming smile, rich voice or the power of her profession.
“Music can draw tears. It can create laughter. People can reminisce. It goes where words cannot,” she said.
It was the music, not words, that led Lane into battle on her own personal journey.
“I was diagnosed with cancer at age 34. I ended up volunteering to bring music to others here and was hired within six months. And that was back in 1983,” said Lane.
Twenty-seven years later, Lane still pushes an aging music cart up and down the hospital halls as part of the music therapy staff.
“There’s everything on that cart from A to Z. Drums, tambourines, there are tone chimes,” Lane said.
The instruments, the songs and the love and laughter help heal.
“It makes it so much easier to move your hurting parts when you’re doing it to a rhythm rather than jerking through the pain,” said Hinda Apple.
Apple is a patient at Hanna House and is undergoing three weeks of intense rehab to help regain movements in her arms and legs after a fall.
“I used to dance to that,” Apple remembered during one song. A memory from the past brought to the present once again.
In the Ireland Cancer Center, another brave soul awaits the next round of chemotherapy.
“Pancreatic cancer, bladder cancer,” said patient Daniel Herod.
Herod and his family are fighting.
“It’d been two months almost. I’ve been going through a terrible sickness,” Herod said.
But for a few minutes, his own sounds drowned out the beeping machines. The bandages and tubes were forgotten while a family leans on one another and Lane.
“They feel themselves and I can ask for nothing more than that,” said Lane.
“Hallelujah,” exclaimed Herod. “I needed to get that out. That needed to come out.”
Many people sing Lane’s praises.
“Deforia is incredible. She really is,” Apple said.
She continues introducing people to the power of music as medicine.
“It has been the joy of my life,” Lane said.
Even though names might eventually be forgotten and faces blur over time, it’s the sounds of Lane’s songs of healing that will stay with these patients forever.
More Information:
Music Therapy At University Hospitals Case Medical Center
Deforia Lane, PHD, MT-BC
