West Coast Plastic Surgery Center oxnard, California, United States
Introduction/Purpose: The recovery process of a post-operative plastic surgical patient can require extensive care, healing time, pain management, and emotional stress. While pain medication is thoroughly researched and proven to effectively provide patients relief, there is scarcity in research concerning the use of sound therapy as an adjunctive healing therapy. Existing research reveals that sound therapy in a surgical setting may be useful in improving patient satisfaction and reducing the amount of analgesic drugs administered perioperatively.
The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of healing frequencies and sound therapy on preoperative anxiety and intraoperative physical stress in patients undergoing surgery.
Methods or Case Description: A systematic literature review was conducted, and seven research articles were selected. The inclusion criteria required studies, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses with a focus on sound or music therapy, studies that have been published within the last ten years, and studies that observe patient care. The exclusion criteria included studies that concentrate on frequency vibration treatment, studies that have been published more than ten years ago, and studies that display results based purely on subjective questionnaires. The selected articles were screened through reviewing abstracts to verify the quality and relevance of the study towards the research question. Subsequently, the applicable segments were identified and reviewed to determine the effect of music or sound therapy on surgical patients. These conclusions were then synthesized by highlighting areas of similarity and disagreement within the articles.
Outcomes: Several studies determined that the presence of music playing prior to and during surgical procedures decreased patient anxiety and exhibited decreased levels of anesthetic and analgesic drugs intraoperatively.5 When patients listen to calming music before and during surgical procedures, systolic blood pressures were found to decrease postoperatively in knee replacement patients. Postoperative pain levels were unaffected, as evident by the insignificant changes in opioid dosage among patient groups.2 Disparate studies showed that postoperative pain in patients undergoing abdominal surgery was improved when listening to music before surgery, which was exhibited using pain scales to assess pain levels in patients. Although pain scales are not objective methods of determining whether music has an effect on pain, opioid doses in the experimental group were significantly lower when patients listened to music postoperatively, which strengthens the results from the pain scales.3 Some studies demonstrated that patients who selected their desired music to be played before, during, and after surgery had a significant decrease in recovery time, pain, systolic blood pressure, heart rate, and anxiety levels.7 Comparably, some researchers concluded that playing music during surgery increased patient satisfaction and reduced pain levels, but it did not decrease recovery time.4 Differing conclusions dictate that patient anxiety was the only improved factor when providing music preoperatively, and that pain levels, recovery time, and anesthesia doses remained consistent.6 Solfeggio “healing” frequencies were explored, and 528 Hz was shown to be successful in relieving stress, as cortisol levels decreased and oxytocin levels increased after patients were exposed to that Solfeggio frequency.1
Conclusion: Music and sound therapy is effective in reducing anxiety among surgical patients. However, there were differing results between experimental studies on the effect of sound therapy on blood pressure, recovery time, pain levels, and anesthetic and analgesic dosage. The heterogeneity of these conclusions illustrate why more extensive research must be conducted in order to determine the efficacy of sound therapy and assess the possibility of an economical alternative to solely relying on analgesic drugs for pain management and patient satisfaction. Further research is needed to test the effects of Solfeggio frequencies and music on surgical patients and establish the extent of its physical healing properties. The next step for progressing this research is to conduct an experiment that focuses on the physical effects of sound therapy rather than the emotional relief, which will confirm or refute previous studies in order to expand the scope of research about sound therapy in a surgical setting.
