Music and Hip Replacements

This morning I was working with a new client of mine who is having total hip replacement surgery. She's 75 years old and has had a couple ofunfortunate surgical experiences lately in large hospitals. This time she's decided to go with a small local hospital and to try some alternative therapies along with the traditional. In looking online she found my site, http://www.healingmusicenterprises.com/ and loads of information about music and surgery. She immediately set up a 30-minute consultation which we had this morning. She's come up with the idea that she'll get two brand-new Ipod shuffles and use one fo the pre ad post surgery music and one for the surgery music. In talking with her, we came up with several different ideas for her music and I told her how to download it on her computer and then upload it to her iPod. Technology is amazing! Having surgery? Please give me a call so that I can help YOU!

The Hospital of the Future

Music is being utilized today in hospitals and clinics around the world. Music has an ability to minimize pain, leading to the combination of music and anesthesia in operations where routine medical sedatives are not effective. Music medicine is beginning to be considered a complimentary therapy. "People undergoing surgery require less anesthesia, awaken from anesthesia more quickly and with less side effects, and heal more rapidly when healing music is played before, during and after the surgical procedure. Patients recovering from heart attacks and strokes respond much more quickly to treatment when soothing music is played in their rooms." 1 In 2004, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released a report based on 600 studies showing that design in hospitals, including sound and light, can have a dramatic effect on how fast and how well patients recover. The concept is to program the hospital with musical selections, one for every place, time and stage of recovery. From the intensive care unit to the chapel, music will be used in each space to speed up the healing process, assure optimal performance by hospital staff, and help visitors best pass the time and peacefully find their way around. The designers of today's hospitals are thinking about the idea of 'prescriptive sound', sound designed for direct application to ease specific traumas, as part of an effort to create a new holistic healing environment. Many diverse hospitals around the country are incorporating music as therapy in a variety of applications. At St. Agnes hospital in Baltimore , Maryland , critical care patients listen to classical music. "Half an hour of music produces the same effect as 10 milligrams of Valium," reports Raymond Bahr, MD, director of coronary care. At Nathan Goldblatt Memorial hospital in Chicago , Ill , music precedes anesthesia in the operating rooms. The University of Chicago 's Medical Research Center combines music and anesthesia. "Music can reduce anxiety and stress, lower heart rates and blood pressure and help minimize cardiac complications after an operation." "Picture your hospital experience in the year 2084. Your first floor room opens onto a lush courtyard garden. The TV & soap operas have been replaced with the gentle sounds of healing music. Fresh scents of various flowers, spices and herbs waive through the room in prescriptioned response to your ailment. A nearby lamp bathes you in soft colors, which seem to soothe your pain. Barely audible words of encouragement, joy and humor come from the tiny speaker near your pillow. A fantasy? Not so say the participants at the Hospital As Temple conference which took place earlier this year in the Netherlands . Creating a healing environment was the theme of this second of a series of three conferences, organized by the Forum Health Care division of the Davidhuis Foundation in Rotterdam . These series of conferences endeavor to foster a new vision of medicine as it might be practiced in the Hospital of the future."

Will Alice Win the Vogt Award this Year?

Yesterday I dropped off my 30-page application for the 2007 Vogt Award. You may remember that I applied last year for my invention and made it to the finals only to find out that I needed FDA approval for anything used in surgery. Soooo, I've spent a lot of time this year getting the FDA to approve. I'm sure you know about my invention, right? I hold a preliminary patent and am getting the final patent now. The invention is ______________. Actually I can't give you the precise information because my lawyer says that until I get the final patent it would not be smart to tell people. Suffice it to say that it has to do with delivering music to the patient during surgery for the purpose of reducing the amount of anesthesia required. Once you hear all the details, you are going to LOVE it, I'm seriously hoping that it will revolutionize the field of surgery. Please keep your fingers crossed that I get the award this year because that will help pay for creating the prototype, legal expenses and a little marketing! You can also go to my blogs listed below and catch up on all that I've been doing in the huge field of music medicine. You might especially want to read the "Surgery with Music" blog, listed below. Music without words means leaving behind the mind. And leaving behind the mind is meditation. Meditation returns you to the source. And the source of all is sound. -- Kabir Healing Music Enterprises 2518 Frankfort Ave. Louisville, KY 40206 502-419-1698

Have you heard about the cyberknife?

Have you heard about the cyberknife? The name certainly cauht my attention but the really exciting thing for me is that the patients use only music to relax before the treatment, i.e. no anesthesia! The following article came from the Star-Telegram.com. "The sharpest knives don't even cut," proclaims a billboard near downtown Fort Worth promoting CyberKnife, a high-tech device that delivers radiation therapy with sub-millimeter precision. Its robotic tracking system keeps a targeted tumor in its crosshair focus while zapping the tumor with 150 to 300 high-energy X-ray beams. We asked Dr. Peter LaNasa, medical director of the Harris Methodist CyberKnife Center in the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders in Fort Worth, to tell us more: Is it actually a knife? No, it is called the CyberKnife because it can be used to treat tumors with surgical precision, including tumors considered "inoperable" because of their location or because the patient can't tolerate traditional surgery -- for example, a lung cancer patient with severe emphysema. What kinds of cancer is it used for? The CyberKnife can be used for brain, spine, head and neck, lung, liver, pancreas, prostate, bone and other localized tumors. It is not used for tumors that cannot be tracked precisely (tongue) or tumors in organs particularly sensitive to radiosurgery (bowel). Is there any discomfort? No. Patients lie quietly on an open table and listen to music for 45 to 60 minutes. No anesthesia is used. All treatments are performed as outpatient, and Medicare and most insurance plans cover the costs. Are there other CyberKnife centers in this area? There are two in Dallas, one in Tyler, one here, one in Austin and one in San Antonio, but not another going west until you get to Arizona. None in Louisville, KY, I'm assuming!

Surgery with music invention coming along

This week I've been on vacation in Florida and I've had the distinct pleasure of talking at length with my original music medicine mentor, Dr. Arthur Harvey. I am now in the final stages of choosing music that will be used with my music and surgery invention and we have heard back from the patent office. I am also required to get FDA approval and so am going through the hoops and the red tape to get that. In the end, I believe that all the money I've spent and all the work I've done will be well worth it because this device will change the way surgery is approached by both the doctors and the patient. I'm really excited about it and wanted to share with you a little interview that was done with me today as I was leaving the beach here on Lido Key. Enjoy!

Update on Music with Surgery

It seems that every day brings new articles and press releases about a certain hospital or surgeon who is now using music routinely with his surgeries. By now, you know that benefits to patients and benefits to surgeon are different. Music for the surgeon came first as Don Campbell's book, "The Mozart Effect" proclaimed back in 1998. Don cited my work educating surgeons at the University of Louisville School of Medicine about benefits of music in surgery, but people were not taking into accout that the patients, even though anesthetized could still hear andbe influenced physiologically by the music. For this reason, doctors and patients alike are becoming more and more aware that the patient needs his own separate and different music during the surgical procedure! What kind of music? Preferably slow, steady, purely instrumental music that comes through headphones directly into the patient's brain through the 8th cranial nerve. This way the patient not only has their heartrate and breathing stabilized through the process of entrainment, but also they don't have to hear the bleeps and blips of OR machines and conversations of surgical staff that are irrelevant and potentially upsetting to them. Currently, I am working on an invention to be used during surgery. The patent is pending but I hope to make a major announcement about its availability in the next six months. Stay tuned! Alice

Music helps doctors focus in the operating room

If you've been reading this blog for awhile you know what I advocate different music for the patient from what the surgeon hears. The surgeon needs upbeat, high-energy music that keeps him wide-awake and focused while the patient needs slow, soothing, very steady music that will stabilize his heart-rate and breathing. Today I read a story about a hospital and a surgeon that are utilizing music in the O.R. for the surgeon, through iPods! Enjoy! Dr. Kalpaj Parekh has two loves in his life: surgery and rockin' out to Led Zeppelin. He considers himself lucky to do both at the same time. Although "rockin' out" is an exaggeration, music is definitely a fixture for Parekh during surgery. Operating rooms at University Hospitals, along with many other U.S. hospitals, are equipped with sound systems. Surgeons say music relaxes them, focuses their attention, relieves tension and even helps pass the time. "I think it just relaxes me right away. It takes the pressure off," said Parekh, 38, a cardiothoracic surgeon who operates on the heart and lungs. "It cuts out all the other noise that I don't want to listen to." Music as a tool in health care is not new. Studies have shown that it helps patients recover after surgery. But research also shows that even surgeons benefit from hearing their favorite tunes. A study done in 1994 by the State University of New York found not only that surgeons performed better with music, but that being able to pick their own music also made them even more proficient. "I find that when I'm operating it's very visual, and I think the music, in a way, does something to keep the verbal side of my brain busy. It's kind of a strange feeling, (but) maybe it's complementary," said Dr. Grant Hamilton, a University Hospitals' surgeon who does facial plastic and reconstructive surgery on the head and neck. Surgery can be routine and short or it can be highly stressful and stretch on the entire day. Although very little talking occurs, the murmurs of machines and other extraneous noise are loud enough to make hours seem like days, said Dr. Mark Iannettoni, 49, of University Hospitals. "There's no talking. Nothing is routine, and there's always a lot of tension," he said. "Music relieves that without making people slack off." Dr. John Canady, a plastic surgeon known for working on cleft lip and palate, prefers that music blend in as background noise when he operates at University Hospitals. "Some surgeons don't like to have any background distraction in the OR at all," said Canady, 49. "For me, it depends on the case, the mood I'm in going into the case, how difficult the case will be." University Hospitals provides a radio sound system in its operating rooms, but in the age of technology, doctors are opting for iPods hooked into speakers. That way they can play their own playlists. Parekh is happy with classic rock, mostly Led Zeppelin, and in particular "Tangerine" or "The Rain Song." Hamilton listens to music by the decade. Sometimes it's the Eagles' "Hotel California," and at times, every pop song played in the '80s. Iannettoni's tastes run from Dave Matthews to Eminem. Canady prefers light country or classic rock. Some music is banned from the operating room, although only by the doctor's preferences and out of regard for patients. For personal reasons, Parekh won't play country. Iannettoni thinks heavy metal would be too distracting. Hamilton prefers familiar songs, which keeps him focused on his patient and not on trying to learn the words. Canady refuses to play Barry Manilow. "When properly used, music can contribute to a patient's safety," Canady said. "A more relaxed ... operating room is a safer one." While some might find it unsettling to think that surgery could include more than scalpel and suture, surgeons said music is present only to assist, not detract, from their work. Hamilton, recalling one surgeon in his residency that turned the OR into what seemed like a bass-thumping dance hall, said music is usually loud enough to be effective but never so loud that it distracts. "You can hear it, but we can easily talk and be heard," Hamilton said. The surgeons said music is common in the operating room and becoming more regular with the younger generation of doctors. Also common, they said, is the seniority that surgeons have to be the real DJs of the medical team. "Even though surgery is a team approach, it's surgeons who get to pick the music, unfortunately," Parekh said.