Critique: Sample Size and Personal Message

Music has been around for thousands of years; it can be used for entertainment, teaching, or healing and coping. One reason people today listen to music is to help get them through rough times. The structural composition of music can influence a person’s thoughts and mood simply through the right chord progression. It has now become an acceptable modality for certain psychological and medicinal mechanisms. Music has recently developed into a therapeutic mechanism for situations stretching from autistic people to the average person struggling with heart break or simply just focusing.

Music therapy has proven beneficial to patients with cancer most notably the psychological and physical end-results. More than one million people in the United States get cancer each year (cancer.org). Most have heard or know of someone who has had cancer and the stories of the chemo radiation therapy that goes along with it. Imagine the emotions that one feels when diagnosed with cancer. The patient is ultimately suffering from the whole ordeal physically and emotionally. Music interventions are employed to “alleviate symptoms and treatment side effects in cancer patients” (Cochrane review).

Due to the extensive procedures surrounding treatment, patients often experience a variety of physical and psychological symptoms and side effects that negatively impact their quality of life and ability to cope with and manage an illness. Providing a choice of music during a receptive music therapy session may not only distract the patient from negative affective states, but also may provide a sense of autonomy and control over a patient 's immediate environment. The purpose of the essay was to determine whether receptive music therapy can improve two general dimensions of emotional experience and pain in a single session for patients. The guiding research question was: Will participants experience improved positive affect following a music therapy session? In my opinion ,I think the answer is yes. music therapy definitely have a positive effect on patients.

This article focuses on hospice patients. Hospice provides music therapy to patients and they often prefer it over other therapy’s. “Patients expect multiple benefits from music therapy, including emotional and spiritual support, support coping with pain, and an opportunity to express feelings. (Burns, 225) Study approved by Purdue University focused on patients physical, emotional and spiritual comfort in their last days. Also keeping in mind length of stay gender, marital status, home care and visitors. These could all effect the mood rather than just the music therapy. “Anxiety and pain are common reasons for referral to music therapy; however, research supporting the use of music therapy to decrease anxiety and pain is equivocal.” (Burns, 229) In conclusion, family’s did not notice a change in pain or anxiety and through research there was no significant change within the hospice

For this example, we develop the question: In a pre-procedure setting, does listening to music help reduce the level of anxiety for adult patients undergoing a stressful procedure? The question falls into the clinical therapy category because it seeks to answer the question about the effectiveness of music. To find best practice, we search literature databases for recent experimental or quasi-experimental studies that are appropriate to the question (LoBiondo-Wood & Haber, 2014-a). The following articles show examples of research that examine the relationship between music and anxiety. Kim, Evangelista, and Park (2015) conducted an integrative review and meta-analysis that finds music intervention has a positive effect on reducing anxiety for patients on hemodialysis. Mohammadi, Mirhagher, Torabi, Mirsane, and Moradi (2014) conducted and randomized quasi-experimental study that shows a significant decrease in physiological parameters and anxiety levels in the trial group when compared to the control group. Thompson, Moe, and Lewis (2014) conducted a quasi-experimental study that finds a significant decrease in anxiety for patients who listen to music before surgery. It shows that the higher the level of anxiety, the greater the benefit from the

The researchers believed that if they could find a way to make the process of a mammogram less painful and anxiety producing, they would be able to decrease the amount of women who skip routine tests for these reasons (Zavatsky et al, 2014, pg.1). In this particular study, 100 samples were used. Of these samples, 50 received music therapy of their choice before the exam and 50 received no music therapy at all. The researchers allowed the women to choose the music they listened to in order to maximize the enjoyment from the session (Zavatsky et al, 2014, pg.2). Women who received music that they didn’t enjoy obviously wouldn’t feel soothed by the session. Self selected music would be an important variable in the study. The researchers hypothesized that music would have a positive effect on patients and cause them to feel less pain and anxiety during the

In this study, performed by Jaakko Erkkilä, Marko Punkanen, Jörg Fachner, Esa Ala-Ruona, Inga Pöntiö, Mari Tervaniemi, Mauno Vanhala and Christian Gold (2011), music therapy was aligned with the psychological treatment already being provided to the participants. Among 79 participants of various ages from 18 to 50 years old, they all had depression as a primary diagnosis, and most had anxiety as well, which is a common comorbid disorder. This study tested the efficiency of music therapy when applied in conjunction to primary psychological care being received by the participants, and the researchers were looking for any evidence that suggested that music therapy could be used to treat psychologically depressed individuals.

Age, gender and income are all independent variables while the variables having cancer and use of holistic methods are both dependent variables.

According a study done by M. Brunges and G. Avigne, researchers for the Association of Operating Room Nurses (AORN), MT is effective in reducing anxiety in patients before, during, and after major and minor surgeries (Brunges & Avigne, 2003, p.816-8). Also, music has been found to improve the body 's immune system and also it is found to be even more effective than drugs to reduce anxiety. (Novotney, 2013, p.46) This makes it a perfect noninvasive alternative to reduce anxiety. In their study, the researchers used 44 people between the ages of 39 to 81 years old to participate in the study. There were 23 males and 21 females who participated. The participants were then separated into one of two different groups. The control group did not listen to music; the experimental group listened to music for at least thirty minutes before going into surgery. The kind of music that was listened to was not documented in this study. All surgeries were joint replacement surgeries. The researchers measured their results by having the experimental group fill out a survey of how they were feeling afterwards, and also measuring the levels of epinephrine, better known as adrenaline, that was produced. This was done by collecting samples of urine

The first section covers a study about how music reduces the anxiety in patients with coronary heart disease, mechanically ventilated patients, cancer patients, and patients awaiting surgical procedures. Secondly, they found that music is becoming more commonly used as an alternative to anti-anxiety drugs. In addition, they also found a study on how blood pressure is affected by music. results show that music only made small reductions in blood pressure when it was used in hypertensive patients to help guide slow and regular breathing. The next study mentioned, shows that music also helps to reduce pain in patients, because music affects the brain's opioid and oxytocin mechanisms, but similar to blood pressure the results show that it only made small reductions. Furthermore, the authors found more studies that show that music helped to improve sleep quality due to muscle-assisted relaxation; and also found studies that showed that pleasant music can activate the reward system to help treat depression that can lead to cardiovascular

In order to relieve patients, nurses are often required to administer risky sedation medication which has equally disturbing side effects that include vomiting, hypotension, respiratory depression, and much more. And yet, something as inexpensive as music has yet to be truly tested as a non-pharmacological therapy for these situations. For the most part, music’s healing power has the ability to become a method of distraction and promote peace through reducing sympathetic nerve control, which involves respiration rates, muscle tension, and gastric activity (Austin 2010). After all, it seems to be promising in neutralizing the anxiety based symptoms associated with sedation or ventilation which could lead to a breakthrough in holistic

A total of 2461 articles were selected based on their titles. Out of these articles, 47 were screened at an abstract level, then 5 articles were fully assessed for eligibility. The authors excluded studies that fit the following criteria: no palliative care patients (n=1), no control group (n=1), and no therapeutic process (n=2). Therefore, only one new study was included for analysis. This search result was combined with the two additional studies previously identified in the previous SR by Brandt & Dileo (2009). The three studies together included a total of 245 participants. The participants had a range of differing diagnoses, including cancers, end-stage cardiovascular, and renal diseases. The three studies all included adults in different inpatient settings (both hospital and hospices), and the participants mean age ranged from 56 to 73.9. The reviewers determined there was not conclusive evidence that music therapy increase quality of life, however, it found that music therapy could diminish pain levels in the palliative population (McConnell et al., 2016).

This paper will conduct a critical appraisal of research over “Effects of music therapy on anxiety of patients with breast cancer after radical mastectomy: a randomized clinical trial” by Li, Wang, Yan, Zhang & Zhou published in July 2011.

This article’s purpose was to compare the effects of Music Therapy (MT) versus Music Medicine (MM) impacts on cancer patient’s psychological outcomes and pain. Music Medicine is pre-recorded music for symptom management which is planned by a profession music medicine therapist. The therapists typically do not stay in the room while the patient listens to the music. On the other hand, Music therapy purpose is for psychotherapy use and is also trained by a professional music therapist and they interact with the patient composing or preforming live and improvised music. To study the impacts between MT and MM the researchers conducted a cross over-trail. The study included thirty-one cancer patients from August 2012 and June 2013 urban hospital

Pain, increased weakness, decreased intake of food and fluid, altered breathing patterns are some physical symptoms often experienced by the terminally ill (Kouch, 2006 as cited in Leow, Drury & Poon, 2010). Treating pain in the terminally ill is very important and challenging for nurses. Therefore, it is important to use both pharmacologic and nonpharmacological methods to reduce pain. The ability of nurses to use music therapy as a nonpharmacological method to manage pain in the terminally ill is a phenomenon of great importance to nursing. Terminally ill in this literature refers to patients with cancer that have six months or less to live and patients that are hospice or are undergoing palliative care. This literature revealed that using a multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA), significantly less posttest pain was reported in the music versus the control group. Cancer patients that listened to soft music in addition to using analgesics experienced increased compared to those using analgesics alone (Huang, Good, & Zauszniewski, 2010). Furthermore, statistical difference was noticed between the groups for mood level and oxygen saturation during live saxophone performance (Burrai, Micheluzzi, & Bugani, 2014). In addition, this research indicated that music may have a more positive effect on females and elderly than younger and more educated males (Chan, Chung, Chung, & Lee, 2008). The