Music as an alternative medicine

By SARA JEROME

For the Pocono RecordJuly 19, 2007Not every sick person holed up in Pocono Medical Center wants a bedside cello concert.When 15-year-old Stroudsburg High School student Breanna Goldner enters hospital rooms to offer a brief serenade on her cello, she hears such comments as: "I only like country music," "I'm too tired" or "Not today."

Jill Howell, a clinical therapist heading the hospital's new Complementary and Alternative Medicines program, which has brought live music to sickrooms since January, said, "Sometimes they're sleepy or they just don't like the cello."

Other offerings include art therapy, yoga classes, trained dogs for petting and more.But for every patient who declines the melodious intrusion — and there are many — several others accept. Yet according to organizers for the new CAM program, accepting these unusual services can have powerful results.

"Many studies have shown the healing power of complementary therapies," Howell said. She attested to watching a drop in stress on a patients' heart monitor readings as Goldner serenaded them."It's about focusing on something else to help reduce the pain or to relax," Howell said.Antoinette Koetteritz, a resident of Camelback Village in Tannersville, landed in the hospital after her "heart went out of control," as she explains it.

When Goldner first played for Koetteritz, the woman broke into tears in her hospital bed."That's a healer," Koetteritz said. "It made me forget about my problems. To me, it's half the healer."Howell isn't surprised by this kind of reaction. A clinical therapist with a master's degree in art therapy, Howell is a firm believer that alternative medicine can aid the healing process by working hand-in-hand with traditional medicine.

"The music goes to this deep place inside you," Howell said.But although the program may lack medical legitimacy, said program overseer Dr. Robert Morrow, the chief of the department of psychiatry, it takes up little of the budget since most of the therapies are offered by volunteers such as Goldner.

"CAM therapy has been shown to enhance a person's perspective of their hospital experience," Morrow said, emphasizing the increasingly competitive landscape of hospitals.That's where CAM comes in: If it can make a person's hospital stay a little less "traumatic," Morrow said, why not?"It's good PR for the hospital," he said. "It's good for its image."Plus, according to Morrow, there has been some evidence suggesting complementary therapies can help people recover."If your perception is more positive, that's going to have a beneficial effect in your physical function," Morrow said. A positive attitude can enhance a person's immune system, helping them fight disease and ward off infections, he added.

"There's not a lot of controlled studies, but more work is being done in that area to quantify that. At the very least, it makes people feel better," he said.In part because the healing power of complementary therapies still draws some skepticism in the medical community, the road to inaugurating CAM at the medical center wasn't always easy — especially when the dog visiting component brought pets within the sterile hospital walls.

"A lot of people were saying, why is there a dog in the hospital? They had concerns about infection control and hygiene. Now, almost everyone is comfortable," Howell said.

The music program, which also includes a harpist, received less criticism from medical staff, but that doesn't mean everyone has been receptive."Some of the people who are more progressive see the benefits," Morrow said. "More and more doctors are taking advantage when they get good patient feedback.

"Howell said progress for the program has been "slow building" since expansion is contingent on doctors requesting the service. The chief obstacle, she said, is reminding doctors that CAM is available.

"Sometimes I have to walk around and say, 'Hello! I'm here!' " Howell said.Doctors can, in some sense, "prescribe" complementary therapy for those they think would be particularly receptive, but Howell said the bulk of referrals rests with the nurses since they spend so much time with patients.Morrow emphasized that CAM is not meant to replace traditional medicine and serves only to enhance it.

"We're not going to be chanting and playing little symbols and burning incense as opposed to standard chemotherapy," Morrow said. "But if we do all that and still administer traditional chemotherapy and it makes a person feel better — great."