World Cancer Day: when music soothes ailments
A cellist comes to play music for cancer patients at a Washington hospital in the United States (illustration image).
AP - Tom Sampson
Text by: Agnès Rougier
4 min
Listening to music, playing it is "doing yourself good" and it is also establishing a link that does not go through words between a patient and his entourage, caregivers as well as family.
Music therapy cannot cure cancer, but by setting ailments to music, it helps overcome pain and anxiety.
Publicity
Read more
A cancer patient has to deal not only with the symptoms of the disease, but also with the side effects of the treatments;
and his suffering is both physical and psychic.
Music therapy
, which uses music and sound as part of care - a practice dating back 2,500 years - has beneficial effects on the anxiety, mood and pain of people treated with cancer.
For Dominique Bertrand, musician and music therapist, music allows the patient to bring order: “
I hear cancer as a setting in dissonance: a part of the body begins to be autonomous and anarchic.
Putting your body in resonance is perhaps bringing up to date the dissonance, becoming aware of it so that it takes on meaning and that we can finally express ourselves
”.
How it works ?
Three approaches are possible: “active” music therapy, with instruments and vocal improvisations.
This technique establishes a musical dialogue and allows the expression of creativity and the sublimation of anxieties and emotions.
"Receptive" music therapy, which is based on listening to personalized musical extracts.
And finally, in the hospital, the so-called “U” method, a “receptive” method based on hypnosis, which facilitates relaxation and soothes tensions, bringing well-being to the individual.
The music therapist uses in this case a musical sequence - chosen according to the tastes of the patient - composed of a succession of instrumental works whose variations in tempo and volume modify the psycho-physiological functions, linked, for example, to the falling asleep or awake.
The method works on both the rhythmic (behavioral), melodic (affective), harmonic (sensory) and timbre (cognitive, memories) components of music;
to get the patient to modify his physical and psychic sensations.
Effective supportive care
Music therapy is not a substitute for oncology treatments, but constitutes
an effective supportive care.
In clinical studies aimed at demonstrating its efficacy, patients suffering from pain and anxiety due to cancer received weekly sessions of receptive music therapy, performed by a music therapist using the U-shaped method. Patients quantified their level of pain and anxiety before, immediately after and 30 minutes after each session.
Significant reductions in pain (more than half the pain) and anxiety (three times less anxious) were found during and up to 30 minutes after the session.
This practice would also reduce heart rate, blood pressure and even fatigue, helping to shorten the length of hospital stay.
Clinical studies have also shown a reduction in nausea in people on chemotherapy treatment.
Music soothes ailments
In France, over the past ten years, the practice of music therapy has gradually spread in hospitals, and in particular in oncology, follow-up care or outside services, with real benefits.
Anne Garnerie, musician and music therapist at the Vaucluse Committee of the Ligue contre le cancer, testifies: “
After a session, my patients feel stimulated and rediscover the joy of living (…) and particularly appreciate the sharing and group cohesion that occurs. create through music
”.
Because music also restores communication by creating a non-verbal relationship.
Music therapy softens pain, facilitates communication, allows emotions to come out, reduces stress and the side effects of treatments: it is a therapy that still needs to be spread, so that cancer patients and healed people can all continue. take advantage when the need arises.
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Health and medicine
Music