Healing music
Each day, more than 3,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with cancer.
Fighting cancer can take all the strength and focus a person can find. Now, patients at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa are getting help from a special kind of treatment that doesn’t come in a bottle. And for this therapy, all they have to do is listen.
Cancer patient Sue Simon says fighting cancer is tiring and tough, she says sometimes you think you’ll never get out of it.
Sometimes, healing takes more than medicine. Once a critical care nurse, now Judy Ranney helps patients feel better with music.
Music practitioners at Moffitt are trained to get the mind to a place that can help the body heal. “If they become tearful or happy or are able to access some other spot in their mind, then that’s good,” says Ranney.
“I get out of that room I have made for myself, that nasty place and just go into a better place,” explains Simon.
Research shows the music can actually modify a patient’s heart rate and breathing. Cynthia Myers, Clinical Psychologist and Director of Integrative Medicine at Moffitt says there is a benefit in terms of pain management, especially post-operative pain. And she says it helps boost a patient’s mood.
Health Team 9 Pscychologist Dr. Steve O’Brien says such therapy is a reminder of the importance of treating both mind and body.
Source: Ivanhoe Broadcast News
Filed under: hospitals, mind-body medicine, Uncategorized
I am a present cancer patient that has just
completed chemoradiation treatments and
surgery for my cancer. Point being, I would like to
see future cancer patients have more “Music” as
part of their healing and recovery process. I identify
with the power of music, since I always encourage
“THE BEAT”(Heart Hoof Drum) which is in part about
how horse and music therapies can parallel at
times to empower. Basic biological rhythms are truly tied into musical rhythms which have a true power
to be transforming. Thanks, Phil Waigand