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Ed. Note: The following is a press
release from Blackwell Publishing.
May 24, 2006 -- Listening to music can reduce
chronic pain by up to 21 per cent and depression by up to 25 per cent,
according to a paper in Journal of Advanced Nursing, 54.5.
It can also make people feel more in control of their
pain and less disabled by their condition.
Researchers carried out a controlled clinical trial
with sixty people, dividing them into two music groups and a control group.
They found that people who listened to music for an
hour every day for a week reported improved physical and psychological
symptoms compared to the control group.
The participants, who had an average age of 50, were
recruited from pain and chiropractic clinics in Ohio, USA. They had been
suffering from a range of painful conditions, including osteoarthritis, disc
problems and rheumatoid arthritis, for an average of six and a half years.
90 per cent said the pain affected more than one part
of their body and 95 per cent said it was continuous. Before the music
study, participants reported that their usual pain averaged just under six
on a zero to ten pain scale and their worst pain exceeded nine out of ten.
“The people who took part in the music groups listened
to music on a headset for an hour a day and everyone who took part,
including the control group, kept a pain diary” explains nurse researcher Dr
Sandra L Siedlecki from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Ohio.
“Forty people were assigned to the two music groups and
the other 20 formed the control group.
“The first group were invited to choose their own
favorite music and this included everything from pop and rock to slow and
melodious tunes and nature sounds traditionally used to promote sleep or
relaxation.
“The second group chose from five relaxing tapes
selected by us. These featured piano, jazz, orchestra, harp and synthesizer
and had been used in previous pain studies by co-author Professor Marion
Good from the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve
University, Ohio.”
At the end of the trial:
· The music groups reported that their pain had fallen by between 12 and 21
per cent, when measured by two different pain measurement scales. The
control group reported that pain increased by between one and two per cent.
· People in the music groups reported 19 to 25 per cent less depression than
the control group.
· The music groups reported feeling nine to 18 per cent less disabled than
those who hadn’t listened to music and said they had between five and eight
per cent more power over their pain than the control group.
“Our results show that listening to music had a
statistically significant effect on the two experimental groups, reducing
pain, depression and disability and increasing feelings of power” says Dr
Siedlecki.
“There were some small differences between the two
music groups, but they both showed consistent improvements in each category
when compared to the control group.
“Non-malignant pain remains a major health problem and
sufferers continue to report high levels of unrelieved pain despite using
medication. So anything that can provide relief is to be welcomed.”
“Listening to music has already been shown to promote a
number of positive benefits and this research adds to the growing body of
evidence that it has an important role to play in modern healthcare” adds
co-author Professor Marion Good.
Previous research by Professor Good and Hui-Ling Lai,
published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing in 2005 and republished in
journal’s 30th Anniversary issue in 2006, showed that listening to 45
minutes of soft music before bedtime can improve sleep by more than a third.
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