Patients' favorite music during surgery lessens need for sedative

[Guest guest]

Patients' favorite music during surgery lessens need for sedative

26 May 2005 Medical News Today

Patients listening to their favorite music required much less

sedation during surgery than did patients who listened to white noise

or operating room noise, according to a Yale School of Medicine study

published in May.

The senior author, Zeev Kain, M.D., professor in the Department of

Anesthesiology, said previous studies have shown that music decreases

intraoperative sedative requirements in patients undergoing surgical

procedures under anesthesia. He wanted to know if the decrease

resulted from listening to music or eliminating operating room noise

The study included 36 patients at Yale-New Haven Hospital and 54

patients at the American University of Beirut Medical Center. The

subjects wore headphones and were randomly assigned to hear music

they liked, white noise or to wear no headphones and be exposed to

operating room noise. Dropping a surgical instrument into a bowl in

the operating room can produce noise levels of up to 80 decibels,

which is considered very loud to uncomfortably loud.

What they found is that blocking the sounds of the operating room

with white noise did not decrease sedative requirements of listening

to operating room sounds. Playing music did reduce the need for

sedatives during surgery.

" Doctors and patients should both note that music can be used to

supplement sedation in the operating room, " Kain said.

The lead author was Chakib Ayoub,M.D., with co-authors Laudi Rizk,

M.D., Chadi Yaacoub, M.D., and Dorothy Gaal, M.D., of the University

of Beirut Medical Center. The study was supported in part of National

Institutes of Health grants.

Anesthesia & Analgesia 100: pp 1316-1319 (May 2005)

Yale University

http://www.yale.edu