Surgery Music

Surgery with Music Benefits

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Preparing for anesthesia during surgery

August 18th, 2011 · Common Fears in Surgery, Dangers and Side-effects of anesthesia

Recently, the Chicago Tribune posted an interesting article about people who are quite fearful of anesthesia during surgery.  They don’t mention the use of music, but of course that is one of the most helpful ways to calm yourself and require less anestheisa.

“For many patients, anesthesia is the scariest part of surgery. But you can ease your fears — and help prevent the rare negative outcome — with awareness and good communication with doctors, says Dr. Paul Rein of Virginia Anesthesia VAPCS in southeastern Virginia.

•Don’t panic. The chances of dying in a car crash are about 40 times greater than from an anesthetic, Rein says. “The reality is anesthesia has become very safe because of better techniques, better monitoring and better practitioners,” he says.

•Don’t cheat on “no food or drink” orders. As a rule, patients should have nothing for eight hours before surgery — even gum. If you vomit while under anesthesia, the contents can get into your lungs, which can be dangerous.

•Know your medical history. Tell your doctor the specific names and doses of all drugs you take, as well as past surgeries. If you’ve had problems with anesthesia before — including nausea — speak up. Also pass along any known family history of complications.

•Stop taking herbal medications. Doctors generally advise avoiding these products for two weeks before an operation, as they can cause increased bleeding.

•Ask questions. Meet with your anesthesiologist and get all the answers you need before heading into the operating room. Learn about the type of drugs you will get; you may have a choice between general or regional anesthesia.

•Arrange for a caregiver. A responsible adult should drive you home and stay with you the day of an outpatient surgery, even after minor operations. Don’t take a taxi or get dropped off at home alone; on top of recovering from surgery, you’ll likely feel the effects of anesthetic drugs for several hours

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Surgery with Music Series Post #30: A Recap of why music is so important for your surgery

July 1st, 2011 · Anesthesia, Dangers and Side-effects of anesthesia, Headphones for other medical procedures, Music and Anesthesia, Music in the hospitals, Surgical Headphones reviews

If you’ve been reading this 30-day series of posts of music with surgery, and you’re still not convinced of music’s power during surgery, I just don’t know what to tell you.  People all over the world, both patients and medical staff including surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurse anesthetists and techs of all kinds are recommending the use of music before, during and after surgery.  There are absolutely no drawbacks or side-effects and so many benefits that the choice is clear.

If you have the ability to make your own playlist, that’s great!  If you have enough lead time to do it, I think it’s a great idea.  I did it for myself back in 1994 when I had a lumbar laminectomy.  The doctors were astounded at how well everything went and how quickly I recovered.  I did it for my mother’s heart bypass in the early 90′s and after quite a bit of skepticism initially, she had such a positive experience that she said she would never again have surgery without music and headphones.

I have been helping patients to use music during their surgery since late 1990 when I began reading about the work of well-known music therapist, Helen Bonny.  I would usually mention her work when I went out speaking at hospitals and universities and associations.  Invariably, someone would say “Dr. Cash, I don’t believe that many people at all know about this music and surgery idea.  I think you should really try to get the word out! 

After that, the rest is history.  I have worked with thousands of patients around the world and in 2008 I got a patent on my Surgical Serenity Headphones.  Although you can purchase them online at www.surgicalheadphones.com, my main goal is to get them into hospitals around the world so that they are ready to go when a patient arrives for surgery.  They would be told about the process of wearing the headphones upon arrival at the hospital and would be issued a set of headphones that would then be theirs to keep, eliminating the risk of infection from previous users.

If you are associated with a full-service hospital, please check out the headphones and the documented benefits.  Using the headphones can greatly reduce the amount of drugs and anesthesia required and create a calmer more peaceful atmosphere for the patient.   As a result of less anesthesia, the patient will recover faster and get back to work sooner and with less trauma.  Every doctor or nurse that I have ever talked to about these has said it is a great idea and that they will be standard equipment in all operating rooms one day!  Please join me in making this dream come true.

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Surgery with Music Series Post #29: Having a C-section

June 30th, 2011 · Headphones for other medical procedures

 Having a Cesarean section childbirth is one of those situations that has very few absolutes.  Sometimes it is scheduled in advance and sometimes it is a relatively last-minute decision, based on a long and unproductive labor.

 The woman to your left had a scheduled C-section after going almost two weeks past her due date.   With my assistance she arrived at the hospital on the scheduled date but found that there were many women schduled before her.  She had not decided when we arrived whether or not she wanted to use the headphones.  After waiting for 30-45 minutes, she was told that she would be prepped for the C-section and then would wait in a room with other women also scheduled for C-sections.

Unlike the women who went into labor on their own, she was not given a private labor room so that she and her husband might be alone before the new baby arrived.  Upon entering the c-section waiting area she discovered that there was no privacy at all.  Somen were talking loudly on cell phones, some were talking loudly to their husbands, and one woman was berating her husband in a way that was very upsetting to the others!

It was at this point that my patient decided to put on the headphones, close her eyes and drift off to her own private sonic cocoon.   She claims that they saved her sanity without a doubt!

Needless to say, these pre-programmed headphones, with calming, soothing classical music that entrains your heart-rate, your breathing and your overall mood, can be helpful in many, many different hospitals areas.  Imagine being in the ER, the ICU or the CCU.  Imagine being in a ambulance with siren blaring or a stat flight helicopter.  Don’t wait for an emergency.  Have your headphones to be enjoying and relaxing with right now and you’ll be prepared!

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Surgery with Music Series Post #28: Procedure other than surgery

June 29th, 2011 · Common Fears in Surgery, Headphones for other medical procedures, Music in the hospitals

 We all know that there are many serious medical procedures both elective and non-elective.  People ask me all the time if the headphones can be used for situations other than surgery.  The answer is a resounding “Yes!”

There are so many medical procedure performed every day, procedure that are serious but don’t involve cutting into the body with knives or lasers.  Some of these procedures are things like kidney dialysis, chemotherapy and radiation, colonoscopy and diagnostic procedures such as MRI’s and CT scans.  Then there are the elective procedures that often are found in the cosmetic surgery realm:  liposuction, botox injections, and lifts of all kinds to various parts of the body.

Whether your surgery is mandatory or elective, music can help to relax you and calm you and enable you to use less pain medication and less anesthesia.  All of this translates to a safer procedure and a faster recover and return to life.  Of course dental procedures such as root canals, crowns, and implants would definitely benefits from using your headphones to help muffle the sound of the dreaded drill.

No matter what the procedure, using music through headphones will make it easier and less painful.

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Surgery with Music Series Post #27: Can you make your own surgery playlist?

June 28th, 2011 · Anesthesia, Characteristics of music for surgery, Common Fears in Surgery, Headphones for other medical procedures

 Of course you can!  If you have enough lead time for your surgery or other medical procedure, and if you understand what the best kind of music is, you absolutely can make your own playlist.

I believe that the cordless headphones are best though, because they can’t become entangled with any other hospital equipment and are not emitting a signal that could interfere with other medical equipment in the OR, ICU, Emergency Room or other area of the hospital.

So what are the advantages of ordering the Surgical Serenity Headphones?  The two biggest are conveniences are…they are ready to go and can be shipped to you overnight if necessary; they have already been programmed for you by a clinical musicologist who has been working in this area for over 20 years! 

The music that I have chosen is based on my work with hundreds of surgery patients and surgical procedure of all kinds.  I am also a psychotherapist, so I understand the extreme anxiety and emotional angst that people go through when they are told that they need surgery.  This music is the absolutely most soothing and calming music that I’ve come across and it doesn’t matter so much what your usual taste in music might be.  This music seems to calm everyone that has heard it and it will work for you too.

If you want to make your own playlist, have the time to do it, and can find cordless headphones, that’s also great!  Please let me know what your questions might be!  Best wishes and good health to you always!

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Surgery with Music Series Post #26: What the news media says

June 27th, 2011 · Anesthesia, Common Fears in Surgery, Dangers and Side-effects of anesthesia, Recent Research on Surgery with Music

Our series of 30 posts on Music with Surgery is rapidly drawing to an end. I thought that perhaps my readers would like to know what some of the major news media have to say about the whole idea. They tend to be critical of such new ideas, but take a look at today’s source: www.livescience.com

“A new study by the Yale School of Medicine confirms previous work showing that surgery patients listening to music require much less sedation.

Previous studies left open the question of whether it was music that did the trick, or just the act of blocking out the sound of dropped surgical instruments and other operating room noise. 

In the new study, researchers tested 90 surgery patients at two facilities. Some wore headphones and listened to the music of their choice. Others heard white noise, that hiss and hum common to office buildings that’s designed to drown out harsh noises. Others had no headphones.

Blocking sounds with white noise did not decrease sedative requirements, the study found, music did.”

“Doctors and patients should both note that music can be used to supplement sedation in the operating room,” said study team member Zeev Kain, a Yale professor in the Department of Anesthesiology.

The results are detailed in the May issue of the journal Anesthesia & Analgesia.

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Surgery with Music Series Post #25: Music with Eye Surgery

June 26th, 2011 · Characteristics of music for surgery, Common Fears in Surgery, Headphones for other medical procedures, How music works, Music and Eye Surgery

In the 20 years that I have been working with surgery patients, helping them choose their perfect music to relax them and assist them through their procedure with a minimum of drugs, I have yet to find a procedure that music can’t help.

This dear lady came to me because she was in the midst of a series of eye surgeries to treat her macular degeneration and her glaucoma. She had already had two of the three surgeries and had to do it with only a local anesthesia. She had emerged from the first two with splitting migraines and a body so stiff and tense she could hardly move for the next several days.

She was feeling somewhat desperate and when she heard about the headphones she was more than ready to try anything! Listen to her story and let her tell you what a positive experience she had:

If you have an eye surgery in your future, you might want to seriously consider giving the headphones a try. The research is there, the experience is there. Music can greatly enhance and improve your surgical experience!

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Surgery with Music Series Post #24: Surgery Headphones in the Hospital with Pacemaker Implantation

June 25th, 2011 · Common Fears in Surgery, Dangers and Side-effects of anesthesia, Headphones for other medical procedures, Music in the hospital

 
Surgery is by no means the only valuable use for Surgery Serenity Headphones.  As a matter of fact, most any procedure that is done in a hospital or doctor’s office could help ease a patient’s anxiety, soothe their fears and decrease the amoung of anesthesia that might be needed.

One of the first patients that used the headphones in the hospital was a man who had a pacemaker implanted.  Listen to his story and keep music in mind if you or anyone you know needs to have a pacemaker put in.  Although the music is already pre-programmed into the headphones, you can easily put your on favorite music on these headphones if you wish!

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Surgery with Music Series Post #23: Entrainment in Surgery

June 24th, 2011 · Anesthesia, Dangers and Side-effects of anesthesia, How music works, Rhythmic entrainment

 To put it as simply as possible, entrainment is all about synchronizing.  Mostly we hear about rhythmic entrainment and brainwave entrainment.  When talking about music during surgery, both of the these types of entrainment are tapped.  The power of entrainment during surgery comes from the slow, steady pulse of the music coming through the headphones.  In this instance, the entrainment begins while the patient can hear the music and feel the relaxation.  As they go into deeper states of “sleep” the vibrations of the slow, steady music keep the heartbeat and breathing entrained or synchronized with the pulse of the music.

The more relaxed the body is during surgery, the less anesthesia is required and the safer the procedure will be and the faster the patient will recover.  It’s so easy and so logical, that it has been overlooked for decades.  Now people are beginning to understand how these works and tap into the power of musical entrainment.  Will you be next?

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Surgery with Music Series Post #22: Can anyone benefit from music during surgery?

June 23rd, 2011 · Characteristics of music for surgery, Common Fears in Surgery, Headphones for other medical procedures, How music works, Music in the hospitals, Surgery Music

 Do you love music?  Does it relax you, comfort you, make you feel safe and secure?  Are there lots and lots of songs and pieces that remind you of happy times and all of the people you love?  If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, there is an excellent chance that you would benefit from music during your procedure.   Before and after your procedure, I think it’s a great idea to listen to the music that is especially meaningful to you.  During your surgery, whether you’re using a regional anesthesia or general anesthesia, research shows that purely instrumental music that has a slow, steady beat and a soothing, calming mood is best.

Ideally, everyone would be able to create their own playlist for their surgery, but that’s really not very realistic.  Most people are a little bit rattled when they find out that they need surgery and sitting down to choose their favorite music and loading it methodically onto their Ipod is just not going to happen.  Then too, many older people wouldn’t know how to put music on an iPod anyway.

That is why I decided to create some pre-programmed, cordless headphones that would have the perfect music for surgery, chosen by a clinical musicologist who has studied this for over 20 years.  If you have been told that you need surgery and if you love music and would like to experience the many benefits of music during surgery, click HERE.  If you have any questions, please don’t hestitate to contact me through this blog.

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