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Clinician Article

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Music as an aid for postoperative recovery in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

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• Hole J
• Hirsch M
• Ball E
• Meads C

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Clinical Comments

Family Medicine (FM)/General Practice (GP)

In addition to a television remote, hospitalized patients should have the option to access a music service like Spotify. Noise canceling headphones would likely be too costly. It`s time to "rock n` roll" with the information presented in this article.

General Internal Medicine-Primary Care(US)

At our medical center, we are struggling mightily with narcotic use, overuse and addiction. If music reduces pain and anxiety, we should use it.

Hospital Doctor/Hospitalists

Although the review deals with postoperative recovery, music might also be helpful in other painful conditions and therefore interesting for hospitalists.

Internal Medicine

Low-cost, low-tech intervention with pretty good results!

Special Interest - Pain -- Physician

The authors of this review demonstrated that music may decrease pain and analgesic requirement in the perioperative period. Music does not get rid of the pain, but it does make it more bearable. The approach is rather simple and easy to use. Hospitals are depressing places. Anything that distracts from being in hospital, such as music, is most likely to decrease pain and analgesic requirement.

Special Interest - Pain -- Physician

A non-pharmacologic measure to improve the recovery after surgery is of interest. Music is seemingly safe, risk-free, could obviously improve patient satisfaction, and reduce sensation of pain and anxiety. Providing patients the option to listen to music should be readily available during the recovery following surgery.

Surgery - Colorectal

This systematic review that included 73 RCTs showed that music reduced postop pain and anxiety but had no effect on postop length-of-stay.

Surgery - Oncology

This article adds nothing new to what we already know.

Surgery - Ophthalmology

These are very useful data. However, in ophthalmology, the post-op period at the hospital is short. I am more interested in the intra-operative period.

Surgery - Plastic

I have no personal experience with this, but music may be an additional postoperative therapy.

Surgery - Plastic

I always thought that music could be useful in relaxing. However, this work definitely demonstrates that it can modify some relevant aspects of postoperative period. It is an interesting information since it can be implemented with very low costs and it could probably positively influence therapeutic costs.

Surgery - Urology

It is nice to have a systematic review on this topic, but it is not a practical intervention in real life. The benefit seems quite limited and may be useful in very select patients. I`ll probably end up telling patients, "if you want to bring your headphones with music you like, it wouldn`t be a bad idea".

Surgery - Vascular

While some ORs/surgeons may debate the presence of music in the surgical environment, this scholarly review offers supportive evidence of a direct patient benefit. This is manifested as decreased pain, analgesic requirements, and anxiety as well as increased patient satisfaction. While a financial benefit (decreased length of stay) was not realized, the editorial reminds the reader that companies "have profited from the mood-altering effects of music". There were no recognized side-effects but only a caution to avoid masking communication between the involved parties with an inexpensive adjunct to improved patient satisfaction-- something all competitive medical facilities would be interested in.