According to a research done by scientists at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, listening to 30 minutes of music can reduce pain after major surgeries in children.
The lead scientist Dr. Santhanam Suresh and his daughter Sunita Suresh conducted the study in children in the age group of 9 to 14 years. Researchers selected 60 pediatric patients who underwent surgeries and evaluated the pain before and after the audio therapy.
Researchers then went on to divide the children into 3 groups; one group heard 30 minutes of music of their choice, one group heard 30 minutes of stories of their choice and one group was in silence.
After the audio therapy, the researchers found a significant reduction of pain in children of the music and story group. There was no change in children who were in silence. Dr. Santhanam Suresh says that audio therapy blocks the secondary pathway of the prefrontal cortex that is involved in pain memory.
Dr. Santhnam also said that the concept of the study is to demonstrate that, if we do not think about pain, we do not feel it much. By doing so, we subtly try to cheat the brain by diverting our mind to something else.
Audio therapy is an interesting and inexpensive therapy to alleviate pain. It should be increasingly practiced by hospital as an effective tool to reduce pain in children undergoing or have undergone major surgeries.
This study appears in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery.
