PARIS, Oct. 7 (EDITIONS) –
Who doesn’t like music? He has “powers” before us. It can make us disconnect from everything around us, it can help us relax, escape, have fun, and also take care of our health.
Marisa Blasco is president of the Valencian Society of Intensive Care Medicine. and Head of the Intensive Care Medicine Service at the Clínico Hospital in Valencia, and in an interview with Infosalus she tells us how music can help a sick person.
“In the context of intensive care, absolutely. The moment someone walks in and plays a song, live music, and also if you personalize it, it gives the patient a moment of reassurance; it makes this stay in the hospital a more convivial, more relaxing space, and the music makes it possible to forget the illness for which one is hospitalized.It reduces the level of uncertainty and anxiety of patients,” he underlines.
In the case of sedated patients, she is convinced that music, especially live music, will help them because, as she reminds us, “the ear is there”, “…the patient’s hearing is there”.is the last thing to be lost and the first to be recovered,” as well as to those who are in a state of delirium or encephalopathy.
“Music can bring them back to reality. Music wakes us all up, and patients too; And in such serious situations, it will certainly help to improve their situation.“, adds this employee of the Musicians for Health Foundation.
A PLEASANT ENVIRONMENT
According to him, there are two very powerful weapons to help patients in intensive care units: on the one hand, relatives, and on the other hand, a pleasant environment, and making the spaces more comfortable with small concerts, activities of all kinds that bring them into contact with reality, and help them to escape from this situation in which they are in a very serious condition.
For instance, Dr. Blasco evokes the case of a young girl suffering from encephalopathy due to cardiac arrest outside the hospital.who, following the live music concerts in the intensive care unit, began to feel a connection with the environment: “She smiled. If we were almost convinced of the benefits of live music for these patients, it convinced us of the usefulness of this tool. I don’t know if it cures or not, but it certainly improves the quality of stay for patients, as well as morbidity. It’s not just regarding tackling the disease, it’s also regarding the context and a healthier, friendlier environment, and music definitely contributes to that.« .
FOR ANY MEDICAL SPECIALTY
In addition, the president of the Valencian Society of Intensive Medicine believes that live music might be useful in all medical specialties, and in particular those that involve continuity and chronicity. She indicates that, for example, in her hospital, live music concerts are also offered in the oncology day hospital, in the hemodialysis units or in psychiatry. ” The The music, if it makes everyone smile and puts us in a good mood, is even more so for the patients. It is a very powerful tool” She insists.
A big fan of concerts, she says live music has nothing to do with the same song being sung by the same person in a studio as it is in a live performance, where the feeling is conveyed.
She also says that in this context there is the request, the personalization, the fact that this patient at that moment requests a specific song, or… the family member says there is a special song in this person’s life, which almost everyone has a certain. She is therefore convinced that music helps patients reduce hospital stays and morbidity.
On the other hand, the head of the intensive medicine service of the Hospital Clínico de Valencia, who is asked why music is not more present in hospitals and health centers given its benefits, answers underlining the difference between “what is minimum and what is maximum”: “It is clear that someone who does not offer music to his patients is not mistaken, our universal public health system is very good and it is not offered in all areas, which does not mean that we cannot aspire to maximums where care and standards are maximum”.
That’s what he thinks happens with things like music.According to him, “it is a standard to which we should aspire to a maximum degree of excellence”, but not a minimum standard to which we should all aspire. He also recalls that the WHO now recommends this measure, which is not mandatory.
Concretely, as the Musicians for Health Foundation recalls, according to a study conducted by the Music Therapy and Health Foundation, micro-concerts can reduce anxiety by 27% and increase patient well-being by 88%.
He also points out that in 2019, the WHO, through its report “Arts&Health evidence network”, has for the first time carried out a large-scale study on the benefits of the arts and live music on our physical and mental health.which found sufficient evidence on: “The potential value of the arts in contributing to the underlying determinants of health; play an essential role in the promotion of health; help prevent the onset of mental illness and age-related physical decline; support the treatment or management of mental illnesses, non-communicable diseases and neurological disorders; and assist with acute and end-of-life care”.
