How is Intraoperative Music Therapy Beneficial to Adult Patients Undergoing General Anesthesia? A Systematic Review

Abstract

Today’s expanding role of technology and the internet-of-things has become an integral aspect of the treatment modalities of health care providers throughout health care systems. With the advent of new devices and online music services, every genre of music is merely a finger touch away for each and every patient. Music therapy has been accepted as a beneficial tool used for the treatment of anxiety and pain relief for the conscious patient. Research has also been conducted to examine the analgesic benefits of music therapy on the patient undergoing general anesthesia. This systematic review focused on answering the aforementioned question regarding the added effects of music therapy. After thorough examination of the literature, it was concluded that the incorporation of volume-protective headphones and patient-chosen music therapy can be an effective and inexpensive intervention during general anesthesia with statistically significant results for decreased pain, decreased opioid needs, and increased patient satisfaction.

INTRODUCTION

The use of music for the treatment of disease processes and ailments can be traced back for millennia. Light et al¹ found evidence of the use of music for medical treatment as far back as 2500 BC. For centuries, the benefits were observational at best, but music remained as an acceptable adjunct therapy for patients in the health care arena. In English hospitals in the 19th century, musicians were hired to play for sick patients.¹ Physicians and scientists began to study the effects on physiology and the benefits of music at the turn of the 20th century. It was then that physicians across the world began to record the changes caused by music on vital signs. Farr¹ pioneered the idea of music in operation suites as early as 1929. In the late 1940s, Pickrell and his research team spent 6 years studying the effects of music therapy on preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative surgical patients.² Their research findings suggest that patients experience decreased fear and apprehension when music is an added element of the surgical experience. Pickrell et al² also noted the use of headphones to be beneficial, not only for delivering the intervention but also as a tool for blocking out nonreassuring noise and conversation inside the surgical arena. Theses surgeries were exclusively performed on sedated patients receiving local, spinal, or regional anesthesia. Systematic reviews to date have included regional anesthesia (ie, epidural, spinal, and local anesthesia), monitored anesthesia care, and general anesthesia³; however, the present systematic review focused only on those interventions done under general anesthesia.