[From the Ontario District's newsletter, The Trillium, issue 60-03, July - September, 2006 , Waldo Redekop, editor.]

Music provides relief

By Waldo Redekop, Editor/Publisher The Trillium 

I seldom am on the Internet as I am on dial up (which is slow). However, in June I had to find some information and, by accident, came across the following.

Knowing that so many Barbershoppers often suffer chronic pain from various conditions, an article that was reported in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, May 2006, caught my attention. The following is excerpted from the Reuters Health page. The lead study author was Dr. Sandra L. Siedliecki, a senior nurse researcher at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio.

“People who suffer chronic pain from arthritis or other conditions may find some relief by listening to their favorite tunes, a small study suggests. All were using pain medication or some other standard therapy.

“Researchers found that when chronic pain patients listened to music one hour per day for a week, their levels of pain, depression and disability all declined. They also felt empowered to help themselves feel better, which appeared to drive the improvement in depression.

“One of the most interesting findings was that it doesn’t matter what kind of music you listen to, just use the music that makes you feel the way you want to feel.”

“The addition of music therapy seems to make mainstream treatments like pain medication more effective," Siedliecki said. "A number of previous studies, she noted, have shown that music may help ease postoperative pain, as well as pain from cancer.

“But there’s no reason people with chronic pain should wait for such studies to try a dose of music," according to the researcher. “It’s something that people could definitely try,” she said.”     k