Photo by Lars Frantzen
Results of a systematic review suggest music can help alleviate symptoms of anxiety, pain, and fatigue in cancer patients.
The review included more than 50 studies investigating the impact of music therapy—a personalized music experience offered by trained music therapists—and music medicine—listening to pre-recorded music provided by a doctor or nurse—on psychological and physical outcomes in people with cancer.
“We found that music therapy interventions specifically help improve patients’ quality of life,” said study author Joke Bradt, PhD, of Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
“These are important findings, as these outcomes play an important role in patients’ overall well-being.”
Dr Bradt and her colleagues reported their findings in Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.
The researchers examined 52 trials including 3731 cancer patients. The music interventions were classified as music therapy in 23 of the trials and as music medicine in 29 trials.
Analyses suggested that both types of music interventions positively impacted patients. The interventions had a moderate-to-strong effect on anxiety, a strong effect on pain reduction, and a small-to-moderate effect on fatigue.
Small reductions in heart and respiratory rates, as well as lowered blood pressure, were linked to the interventions as well.
In addition, the researchers observed a moderate increase in patients’ quality of life with music therapy but not music medicine.
The team could not determine the effect of music interventions on depression due to the low quality of evidence. And there was no evidence that the interventions improve mood, distress, or physical functioning, but there were few trials investigating these outcomes.
Similarly, the researchers said they could not draw any conclusions about the effect of music interventions on immunologic functioning, coping, resilience, or communication because there were not enough trials evaluating these outcomes.
Still, the researchers hope music interventions will become more widely used, in light of the potential benefits to cancer patients.
“We hope that the findings of this review will encourage healthcare providers in medical settings to seriously consider the use of music therapy in the psychosocial care of people with cancer,” Dr Bradt said.
