Hearts and Harps

If you could wake up from anesthesia with your ipod in your ears, what music would you choose to hear? Music therapy is now being used in some of the most critical postoperative patients. There’s no question, adrenaline is bad for the heart, especially after open heart surgery. So why not expose the patient to something soothing and calming… While beeps and suction is the typical sound of an intensive care unit, at Morristown Memorial Hospital the appearance of a harp in the cardiac post anesthesia care unit or c-pac for short looks even more out of place. But therein lies its benefit. “It was very relaxing and in here you need something relaxing because everything else unnerves you. In fact I think I went to sleep,” says Don Bashford who just had open heart valve surgery. He says the harp was in fact healing. “It’s not the kind of music I normally listen to, but how many people have a chance to listen to harp music,” says Don.

Perhaps the only time a person hears a harp sound is when heaven is being referenced. “Yes the joke is have i gone to heaven but I think that’s something the patients feel that there is a spiritual support here,” says Emilie Rowen, the Coordinator of Integrative Medicine at Memorial Memorial Hospital.

“The music that I play should have a gentle steady rhythm, should not be recognizable, because we don’t want to elicit an emotional response from a time when that was not happy in someone’s life,” states Alix Weisz, the harpist. Alix says no question she sees the harp’s benefits. Alix said, “Many times if I’m seeing descending tones, I can see the monitor go down, 89, 88,87--it’s great feedback for me I know I’m playing the right thing.’

Researchers are looking to see if the harp music has any true physiologic and healing benefit on the heart—based on its effects on stress. Doctors will measure the patients’ blood pressure, heart rate, respiration rate, and length of stay of the patient. The vitals are monitored every 15 minutes during the stay in the unit and for an hour afterward. “It soothes them and calms them because the harp is here. We recently had a patient who was fighting and aggressive it soothed him, when she was done he became aggressive again,” says Emilie.

Yep, don liked it, but he’d choose a different music just the same. “Rock and roll…..yeah, I like the old rock and roll…,” says Don. The researchers chose the harp because it does have reported soothing benefits. But future studies will likely be done looking at different forms of music, perhaps personal preference, and to see if there is a difference between live and taped music.