It's no secret that listening to music helps lift people's moods. But it turns out music can also benefit those who are undergoing cancer treatment. Experts found that music therapy helps lessen cancer patients' anxiety, pain, and fatigue and improves their quality of life.
A study from Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania published by the Cochrane Library found that more than 3,700 cancer patients felt small to strong improvements in their anxiety and fatigue levels due to music therapy, Stuff.co.nz reported. Small declines in heart and respiratory rates and blood pressure were also found after cancer patients listened to different categories of music such as folk, country, classical, jazz, and religious.
Joke Bradt, the study's lead author and an associate professor at Drexel University, said listening to music could lower cancer patients' need for anesthetics and analgesics. Music intervention can also diminish patients' recovery time and hospitalization.
Bradt said more studies are needed to prove these findings, but she and her colleagues are hoping that health care providers would consider adding music therapy to cancer patients' psychosocial care. Sally Francis, head of the Arts in Health program at Flinders Medical Centre in South Australia, said music distracts cancer patients from their condition and improves their confidence in themselves, especially now that their illness pushes them to surrender all control and decisions to medical staff.
That boost of confidence is important during a time of hopelessness that a cancer diagnosis usually entails. According to Francis, listening to music relaxes cancer patients and encourages them to reflect and express their emotions.
Experts also believe that listening to music helps retain information and lower memory loss risk, The Huffington Post. This is particularly helpful for people with dementia, which is the decline of a person's mental ability that includes memory loss and struggles with language, thinking, and solving problems.
Listening to music helps people stay fit and healthy as well. Working out or exercising is easier to do with the aid of upbeat, pop, or rock and roll songs.
A study published on the ADVANCE Healthcare Network found that listening to music affects a person's Immunoglobin A or IgA, which is an important antibody that serves as the immune system's first defense against diseases. According to a 2013 analysis titled "The Neurochemistry of Music," there is promising evidence that music strengthens people's immune systems, but further studies are still needed for this. Music as medicine is encouraging because it's natural, cheap, and doesn't carry the side effects of pharmaceutical drugs and treatments.
