Following heart bypass surgery, patients often experience erratic changes in blood pressure. Such changes are treated with drugs. Studies show that those in intensive care units where background music is played need lower doses of these drugs compared with patients in units where no music is played. Scientists and medical doctors are investigating the value of musiclike games to aid dyslexics. When dyslexics play a game that calls for responses to tones that come very fast, it reportedly helps them to read better.
Some hospitals play soft background music in intensive care units for premature babies.
Researchers have found that such music, as well as a nurse's or mother's humming, helps babies to gain weight faster and to leave the unit earlier than premies who don't hear these sounds. On the other end of the age scale, music has been used to calm Alzheimer's patients. At mealtime in nursing homes or hospitals these people may be difficult to organize. Fights even occur. The right kind of music, it has been demonstrated, reduces confusion and disagreements.