Music as Medicine

The following post is written by Lisa Suennen one of our 2015 Women to Watch. It originally ran on her blog Venture Valkyrie. It happens every time. I hear “Bad to the Bone” on the radio and suddenly all is right with the world. I love music and I have learned that if I choose the correct genre and tempo  I can improve a depressed state or calm a hyper one. I have song lists on my iPod called Cranky and Stressed, F the World, and Happiness, all designed around my various moods. Music can have a profound affect on my state of mind. I think this is true for most people, actually. The therapeutic value of music has long been known to the medical world. Famed neuropsychologist Oliver Sacks used music to engage his patients (this was dramatized in the movie The Music Never Stops, where a brain-damaged patient is able to recall memories otherwise lost when he hears the favorite music of his youth). And I saw an article this week, courtesy of my BFF, which stated this: One hundred years ago, Pennsylvanian surgeon Evan Kane penned a brief letter to JAMA in which he declared himself a rigorous proponent of the “benefic [sic] effects of the phonograph within the operating room.” To Kane, it was an optimal means of “calming and distracting the patient from the horror of their situation.” Of course this was before effective anesthesia so anything would have helped. The article goes on to say that the connection between music and healing has been known, or at least reported, ...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Consumer Health Care Innovation Technology Source Type: blogs