The researchers divided the patients into two groups with 20 patients in each group. One group was offered headphones and asked to choose from 22 types of music including classical music, classical guitar, chamber music, folk music, as well as pop music from the 1940s and the 1950s. They started listening to the music 10 minutes before going into the operation room and throughout the surgery. The other group didn't listen to any music and served as a control group. Patients in the control group maintained the elevated blood pressure throughout the procedure, and some patients even went home with blood pressure still elevated, according to researchers.
Music is a safe, enjoyable, inexpensive, noninvasive and non-drug treatment with no adverse effects.
We believe music has potential applications in many types of ambulatory surgery, among many patient age groups. Lawrence Golden, MD, a clinical cardiologist at the University of Buffalo School of Medicine in New York, says that the findings show music was therapeutic for this age group and it should be offered to patients who go through outpatient surgeries. In this age group, two subsets of potential cardiac conditions are seen, not infrequently, says Golden. One is abnormal functioning of the left ventricle, and the other is existing but undiagnosed coronary artery disease. Golden says that older patients may feel powerless in the operation room without knowing what will happen to them.