Rihanna songs can ease children’s post-op pain, says study

30 minutes of music from artists a child prefers would significantly reduce pain after a major surgery, says a new study at Northwestern University.

The music your child likes may not be your favourites, but when it comes to post-op pain management, your personal music taste may not benefit the patient.

“Audio therapy is an exciting opportunity and should be considered by hospitals as an important strategy to minimise pain in children undergoing major surgery,” says study senior author Dr Santhanam Suresh. “This is inexpensive and doesn’t have any side-effects.”

The research team was interested in discovering a non-pharmaceutical strategy for paediatric pain management because opioid analgesics can lead to breathing difficulties in children.

The participants ranged in age from nine to 14 and selected their favourite music from a playlist of chart-topping music in genres that included pop, country, classical and rock.

Suresh emphasises the importance of allowing the patients to choose their music.

“Everyone relates to music, but people have different preferences,” he says.

If the child likes Rihanna or Taylor Swift, those are the music that would work.

Patients reported their pain levels before and after audio therapy by identifying images of facial expressions that best portrayed how they felt.

While the patients had varying amounts of initial pain, the therapy worked regardless of how much pain they complained of after their surgeries, according to the study.

The research team divided them into three groups, each of which had a different type of audio therapy that included audiobooks, music and noise-cancelling headphones, with sessions of each lasting for 30 minutes.

The only group that had no significant reduction in pain was the group that used the noise-cancelling headphones, according to the study.

The study, which was published in the journal Pediatric Surgery, is believed to be the first randomised evaluation of audio therapy as a method to manage pain in paediatric patients. – AFP Relaxnews