When Using Music to Alleviate Pain, Tempo Matters

The AHA! Team — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 05:37:38 +0000

McGill University via EurekAlert! – We each have a natural rhythm, and music that matches it offers the best pain relief, McGill research suggests. Music has the best chance of providing pain relief when it is played at our natural rhythm, a McGill University research team has discovered. This suggests it may be possible to reduce a patient’s level of pain by using technology to take a piece of music someone likes and adjust the tempo to match their internal rhythm, the researchers said. The discovery was the subject of a paper published recently in Pain, the top journal in the field of pain medicine and research. Exploring which aspect of music lessens pain Music has been used to alleviate pain for centuries. In recent years, there has been increasing scientific interest in using music to treat medical conditions ranging from Parkinson’s disease to strokes and chronic pain. But little is known about how this might work. “There have been very few studies that really look at specific parameters of music to try to understand the effects of music on the brain,” explained Mathieu Roy, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at McGill and the co-senior author of the paper. It has often been suggested that soothing or relaxing music works best as a pain reliever “In the past, it has often been suggested that soothing or relaxing music works best as a pain reliever,” added co-author Caroline Palmer, a Distinguished James McGill Professor in the Cognitive Neuroscience of Performance in the Department of Psychology and co-senior author of the paper. “But this didn’t seem precise enough. So, we set out to investigate whether the tempo — the rate at which a passage is produced and one of music’s core elements — could influence its capacity to reduce pain.” Our own internal beat may distract us from pain Research over the past decade has shown that whether we speak, sing, play an instrument or just tap along to music, we each have our own characteristic rhythm: the one to which we are most attuned and can produce most comfortably. It is thought that this rhythm, known as our spontaneous production rate (SPR), may be tied to our circadian rhythms. “It is possible that the neural oscillations that are responsible for driving our preferred tempo at a particular rate are more easily pulled along when a musical tempo is closer to our own natural tempo,” added Roy. “As a result, they are pulled away from the neural frequencies associated with pain.” The right beat reduces level of pain To find out whether listening to music at an individual’s natural tempo helped lower their experience of pain, the McGill researchers compared the pain ratings of 60 participants (some of whom were musicians and others not) as they were subjected to low levels of pain, either in silence or while listening to music that had been manipulated so that its tempo either matched the one that was most natural to each person or was slightly faster or slower. Each participant’s natural tempo was established by their tapping out the rhythm of a well-known nursery rhyme (Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star) at the rate that was comfortable for them. The touch-sensitive pad they tapped on produced the next tone in the sequence of the melody, thus capturing their natural tempo. Participants underwent 12 blocks of tests in which 10 seconds of heat at various levels was applied intermittently to small pads on their forearms Over the course of 30 minutes, participants underwent 12 blocks of tests in which 10 seconds of heat at various levels was applied intermittently to small pads on their forearms, interspersed with pauses of varying lengths. Participants either experienced the pain in silence or listened to an unfamiliar melody in a style they had selected at their preferred tempo, or at 15 per cent faster or 15 per cent slower. After each block of tests, they were asked to rate their level of pain. At worst, according to Roy, the pain was like what you feel when you touch the outside of a hot coffee mug and pull your hand away quickly because it’s too hot. The right beat reduces pain the most The researchers found that, compared to silence, music of whatever kind and at whatever tempo significantly reduced participants’ perceptions of pain. More important, they discovered the greatest reductions in the ratings of the levels of pain occurred when the melodies were played at a rate that matched the participant’s own preferred tempo. As a next step, the researchers said they would like to use electroencephalography to measure neural activity and confirm that the rate of neuronal firing synchronizes with the external tempo of the music. They also indicated that they hope to test their findings with people living with chronic pain or pain associated with medical procedures. The research was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Canada Research Chair and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Journal Pain DOI 10.1097/j.pain.0000000000003513 To read the original article click here.

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Dementia Patient Nails All the Lyrics in Christmas Party Song, Viral Example of Healing Power of Music

AHA Publisher — Tue, 17 Dec 2019 08:00:08 +0000

Lori Johnson via CBN News – This year’s Christmas party at a Scottish assisted living center was especially joyous when one of the patients, who suffers from memory issues, remembered every single word to “My Way.” The heartwarming holiday moment was captured on video and immediately became an internet sensation. Eight-three-year-old Margaret Mackey has been diagnosed with dementia, which causes extreme forgetfulness, even to include the names of family members. However, her recollection of the Frank Sinatra classic was near perfect, to the delight of her daughter who happily recorded the stunning rendition on her phone. Mackey is pictured belting out the tune with Jamie Lee Morley, an employee of Northcare Suites Care Home, who posted the video to his Facebook page. “The staff have been saying to her, ‘We saw that video of you and Jamie singing,’ and she just says, ‘Who’s Jamie?’ She can’t remember,” he told SWNS. Turns out, Margaret Mackey’s experience has been repeated by other dementia patients worldwide. People who have difficulty remembering, even speaking, sometimes have what appears to be a reversal of their symptoms when they listen to music. For example, listening to his favorite big band music made 96-year-old Mike Knutson tap his toes, clap his hands and smile, according to his daughter, Barb Knutson. “The music really does something to wake him up and help him to be more engaged with what is going on around him,” she said. Knutson took part in a study of 200 nursing homes analyzing the effects of music on mood and memory for people with dementia in nursing homes. But not just any music will do. The patient needs to listen to songs he or she loves. Now it turns out music therapy could be a standard treatment added to traditional dementia therapies and could even take the place of some medications. Music therapy has already proven effective for stroke patients. For example, when a massive stroke tried to take away James Rodriguez’s speech, the Music and Medicine program at Virginia’s Sentara Healthcare helped him get it back. James belts out “Amazing Grace” and all the old hymns that bring back happy memories from his days in the church choir. Music Therapist Tracy Bowdish says we actually use more of our brain when we sing the same phrase versus when we speak it – because when we are singing we have rhythm, melody, and emotion. That’s how music can energize disabled parts of the mind. “We’re able to activate more areas of the brain and reroute and create new neuro-networks so we can get around that damaged area caused by the stroke,” she said. To read the original article click here. For more articles from CBN News click here.

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When Using Music to Alleviate Pain, Tempo Matters

Dementia Patient Nails All the Lyrics in Christmas Party Song, Viral Example of Healing Power of Music