[HN Gopher] Music eases surgery and speeds recovery, study finds
___________________________________________________________________
Music eases surgery and speeds recovery, study finds
Study:
https://mmd.iammonline.com/index.php/musmed/article/view/111...
Author : 1659447091
Score : 180 points
Date : 2025-11-27 04:55 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| flave wrote:
| Better to link the actual study rather than what a know-nothing
| hack has to say about it:
| https://mmd.iammonline.com/index.php/musmed/article/view/111...
|
| Nothing against the BBC but the most thoughtful journalist has
| all the scientific knowledge of Tarot Reader's cat.
|
| Anyway, n=56 which is fine I guess but leaves loads of margin for
| error.
|
| Personally, I had a cystoscope and at the time had fancy health
| insurance so went to a bling London hospital and the surgeon
| insisted I listened to music - saying exactly what this article
| said. It lowers cortisol after, makes you less restless during
| and improves patient reported outcomes.
|
| You can look up what a cystoscope is, I elected to do it with a
| blocker rather than with a general anaesthetic. All I will say is
| that track Shadowboxin' by GLA is now completely unlistenable for
| me!
| comradesmith wrote:
| That is so incredibly rude of you. Science communication to the
| general public is valuable.
|
| Let's not forget that the author is a person too, just cause
| you don't like it doesn't mean you've got any place to talk
| down on them.
| flave wrote:
| I'm sure the individual writer is smart educated and
| thoughtful, but the system of science journalism (science
| communication is different but equally flawed) is so bent-
| out-of-shape as to be effectively worthless.
|
| Like, take this exact article as a great example. I'm sure Mr
| Biswas is genuinely very intelligent and thoughtful and a
| great journalist but having him write a science article is
| unfair on him and on readers.
|
| Doesn't even have an undergraduate in a science subject, has
| never worked as a scientist, and his job is as a national
| correspondent.
|
| Perhaps my wording prioritised humour over fairness - I'll
| take the criticism on that. But I don't think my core point
| was wrong. How can you "communicate" something you yourself
| don't understand?
|
| Finally, I want to stress again - it's not his fault. The
| system is broken.
| terabytest wrote:
| Can you point out the issues with the article?
| nelox wrote:
| The core issue is that the BBC report inflates what the
| study actually shows. The paper is a small, single-centre
| RCT of one specific surgery (laparoscopic
| cholecystectomy). Its primary outcome is a modest
| reduction in propofol and fentanyl dose under a very
| specific anaesthetic protocol. It does not demonstrate
| broadly faster recovery or an across-the-board clinical
| benefit. The authors themselves are cautious and
| explicitly list limitations.
|
| The article strips out that narrow context and
| generalises. Phrases like "music eases surgery and speeds
| recovery" and "strongest evidence yet" extrapolate from a
| sample of 56 people undergoing one procedure to "surgery"
| in general. The paper doesn't measure global recovery
| outcomes, discharge times, or longer-term effects.
| Satisfaction and pain scores are even reported as
| comparable between groups (P=0.361 and P=0.07).
|
| There's also mechanistic speculation in the article
| (implicit memory, psychological responses, "humanising
| the operating room") that isn't in the study's data. The
| paper reports dose differences and perioperative
| physiological measures--not neuropsychological
| mechanisms.
| waterhouse wrote:
| > Its primary outcome is a modest reduction in propofol
| and fentanyl dose under a very specific anaesthetic
| protocol.
|
| Ooh, that sounds like p-hacking. How many other
| protocols, and other potential outcomes in general, did
| they look at before picking the one to publish? If it's
| on the order of 20, then we can expect they'd encounter
| such a result by pure chance.
| flave wrote:
| Sure.
|
| The headlines says that music "speeds recovery" but the
| paper specifically says that patients had similar
| recovery profiles.
|
| The media article overall overstates the findings of the
| study. It's a very specific study on a specific cohort
| and a specific surgery (minimally invasion) but the
| article implies strongly that music helps with all
| surgery.
|
| Also the paper specifically doesn't touch on medial
| outcomes from the music - that's fine as science since
| it's granular, but it's a pretty big thing to miss in the
| article.
|
| The article misses a bunch of further questions that need
| more research. How does the patient playing music affect
| the surgeon? Is it music in general or specific music
| that helps? Is the patient choosing the music relevant?
|
| "Reshape how hospitals think about surgery"? Not really,
| hospitals already use music in surgery so it's not going
| to "reshape" anything. Over dramatisation.
|
| It's also just very shallow. Makes no mention of existing
| science/practice for example. Didn't speak to any other
| researchers.
|
| Look, the article is fine-ish but it's just a
| regurgitation of the paper with more dramatisation and no
| analysis. Just post the paper especially on HN.
| tobr wrote:
| > How can you "communicate" something you yourself don't
| understand?
|
| This goes both ways: how can you (as a scientist)
| communicate something when you don't understand
| communication?
|
| The answer to both is to let the person who understands it
| and the person who is good at communication collaborate.
| mentalgear wrote:
| Good points - that's why I follow & support
| https://theconversation.com/ for news since it's Science
| Journalism is done by actual scientists working in the
| field.
| dev_hugepages wrote:
| I kind of understand where they come from: science
| vulgarization in pop news has been riddled with
| misinterpretation or lack of depth which can mislead the
| general public.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| Can't that be communicated without calling anyone a know-
| nothing hack?
| flave wrote:
| I'm not gonna delete it as it's just going to make
| comments like yours confusing for people, but that was
| poor phrasing from me.
|
| It gave the impression that this specific journalist
| knows nothing, which is unfair.
|
| I was trying to be funny (always risky online) and
| intended to be speaking humorously about science
| journalism in generally. In hindsight, my phrasing
| doesn't do that, and actually doesn't communicate what I
| was saying very well.
|
| I stand by my criticism of science journalism in general
| and my request that the article is just posted. But my
| wording was very rough, ultimately didn't make the point
| I intended and yes might frustrate some people. If
| someone is extremely upset or hurt by my comment then, I
| think, at some stage that isn't my fault and the Internet
| might not be right for that person.
| squigz wrote:
| Oof, this comment was really nice up until the end.
| Accepting responsibility, expressing regret, etc.
|
| > If someone is extremely upset or hurt by my comment
| then, I think, at some stage that isn't my fault and the
| Internet might not be right for that person.
|
| But then you're like "If you're upset, whatever, that's
| on you" - even though nobody's really suggested someone
| is "extremely" upset or hurt by your comment.
|
| Also, you can be funny on the Internet - it has nothing
| to do with that. The real question is whether you can be
| funny without degrading people.
| ucha wrote:
| n=56 doesn't give you much information regarding the margin of
| error, unless you practice Tarot Reader's cat science. The
| standard deviation of outcomes and the difference between both
| outcomes matter just as much.
|
| If I flip a coin 56 times and it always falls on head, I can be
| pretty much certain that it's not a fair coin. I wouldn't need
| to flip it 1000 times. We are all someone else's "know-nothing
| hack"...
| laborcontract wrote:
| also, "this is study is flawed because n=56, here's my n=1"
| is hilarious
| blutoot wrote:
| How did the BBC guy generalize this to all kinds of surgeries?
| https://mmd.iammonline.com/index.php/musmed/article/view/111...
| ports543u wrote:
| The paper mentions it being about total IV anaesthesia with
| propofol, so it should be generalizable to all surgeries with
| the same anesthetic conditions.
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| Sure, but it melts off your face
| afandian wrote:
| I think those are a pre-surgery photographs.
| arethuza wrote:
| A while back I had to have a long and unpleasant dental procedure
| - a bone graft so I could get an implant in an area where the
| bone had been damaged - this took about 4 hours. During this time
| the dentist played music - mostly various works selected at
| random by Hans Zimmer.
|
| At one point things got a bit intense as apparently I have very
| hard bones - which meant that quite a bit of force was being
| used. The music playing during this part of the procedure was "No
| Time for Caution" - which I thought was hilarious... and this
| fact kind of took my mind off of things.
| rurp wrote:
| Hah, that's great.
|
| My dentist has overhead TVs in all of the rooms. Before a
| longer appointment I asked if I could bring some over-ear
| headphones to connect to the TV. Surprisingly nobody had asked
| that before but they were fine with it. The headphones drowned
| out the drilling and other noises and helped me zone out into
| some shows.
| arethuza wrote:
| I'm very short sighted so TVs wouldn't work for me, but I
| also tend to keep my eyes tight shut in case I see any of the
| ghastly instruments being used!
|
| [During the bone graft I did open my eyes briefly and saw a
| small for clearly identifiable circular saw].
| tetha wrote:
| Once you get down to bone, especially larger ones, parts of
| the surgery turns into masonry and carpentry. Including the
| tools. Power drills are valid tools in joint replacements
| or fracture stabilization.
| dakial1 wrote:
| Hans Zimmer is my soundtrack of choice for focus (Dune 2 is
| specially good). Found out that a colleague also had the same
| taste which was surprising for me, now I imagine it is a common
| use case for his music.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| My now-wife had her wisdom teeth pulled not too long after we
| met. The oral surgeon suggested music or an audiobook. She
| chose a Game of Thrones book, which was fine until it got to a
| torture scene as they were rooting around in her mouth. At
| which point she was unable to change it. Surprisingly, she
| still likes the audiobooks.
| shevy-java wrote:
| I am always so peaceful when listening to heavy metal ... :D
|
| I think the article should focus more on good music elements
| versus bad music elements. My brain gets annoyed at bad music.
| Good music can be useful though, in particular for relaxing. I
| normally dislike jazz-elements, but Sade for instance is
| acceptable (not pure jazz, but she uses jazzy elements).
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Good music is subjective. Aside from the guitar skills involved
| in shredding, I think heavy metal is probably the worst genre
| of music.
| j_mo wrote:
| I'd say good music is objective. Whether it's hard to play,
| uses complex polyrhythms etc. which most listeners aren't
| even aware of - and those people tend to think good music is
| subjective as they can't perceive the quality, only whether
| _they like it or not_. There 's also some incredibly skilful
| metal music with no "shredding" whatsoever.
|
| I don't particularly like Mozart but I'd be an idiot to say
| it's not good music. On the other hand most people agree
| Taylor Swift does not make good music, having released lots
| of samey 4 chord songs with incredibly simple melodies, but
| she's one of the most listened artists of all time.
| padjo wrote:
| If the goal of music is to induce an emotional or
| intellectual response in a person. Then only the listening
| person can decide if a response was induced and if that
| experience impacted them in a positive or negative way. It
| is the definition of a subjective experience.
|
| The complexity of the music or the technical skill of the
| artist has nothing to do with it being good or bad. Music
| anywhere on the spectrum from simple ambient noise to
| symphonic formalism to simple and infectious can be good or
| bad based on the taste of the listener.
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| Complexity isn't really the thing either. I've heard a ton
| of terrible but technical songs. Often the coolest songs
| are remarkably simple, yet manage to do something that
| feels new. A modern example: https://youtu.be/ga8K_diGviw
| alt227 wrote:
| This attitude promotes eliteism in music, which I am very
| opposed to.
| lawgimenez wrote:
| Heavy metal/hardcore is good music. Mumble rap is bad music.
| Anthony-G wrote:
| I'm more a fan of atmospheric black metal, 80's thrash and prog
| metal, myself but the psychological effects of listening to
| death metal have been researched. As previously discussed on
| Hacker News:
|
| Dissecting the Bloodthirsty Bliss of Death Metal:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18335308
|
| Death metal music inspires joy not violence:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19383699
| thomasfl wrote:
| If music is so valuable to us humans, then why can't humanity
| make a site like wikipedia for free music? There is a new
| generation growing up used to streaming services costing 10 bucks
| a month.
| postshakeman wrote:
| If it's so valuable why not pay people that make it?
| eptcyka wrote:
| Lets pay for new music, but how about we have the old stuff
| be available for free or at cost?
| hiccuphippo wrote:
| Mickey Mouse made sure to make it as hard as possible.
| Tokkemon wrote:
| The public domain exists.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| https://musopen.org
|
| https://imslp.org
|
| https://freemusicarchive.org
|
| https://www.jamendo.com
|
| https://ccmixter.org
|
| https://freepd.com
|
| https://incompetech.com
|
| https://audionautix.com
| dualogy wrote:
| For flow-compatible electronica, let me add specifically:
|
| https://netlabels.org/electronic-music/
|
| https://files.scene.org/browse/music/
|
| https://netlabelarchive.org/
|
| https://freemusicarchive.org/label/all/
| ssl-3 wrote:
| Wikipedia covers music very well. It often doesn't include the
| music itself, but there's a ton of great writing and history
| about music.
|
| And many artists still publish CDs, vinyl records, and other
| physical artifacts just like they have for ~most of our
| collective lifetimes. If you want new generations to experience
| that kind of thing, then buy some of it for them to experience.
|
| (Or, you know: If that seems like too much work or too much
| money, then a streaming subscription is only about 10 bucks a
| month. I spent a _lot_ more than that on music when I was a
| kid.)
| suyash wrote:
| Music is truly a form of medicine!
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Wait till you hear how much we have to pay for other life-
| saving things like drugs and surgery...
| buildsjets wrote:
| The kids are gonna be alright. King Gizzard and the Lizard
| Wizard archives all of their concert tapings on archive.org.
|
| https://archive.org/details/KingGizzardAndTheLizardWizard
| bbarnett wrote:
| Some find music to be distracting, and therefore don't listen to
| it. This can build a general dislike of music.
|
| I presume such souls may wither away and die, while in a coma, as
| a person "helpfully" plays very annoying sounds 24x7.
|
| An alternate, is I do see some very strong preferences for music,
| with strongly expressed dislikes, even among music lovers. I can
| imagine the same, someone in a coma giving up and dying, to "get
| away" from the horror.
|
| (Meant as an amusing thought, I doubt any would vacate this world
| to escape)
| Havoc wrote:
| >Even as the drugs silence much of her brain, its auditory
| pathway remains partly active.
|
| oh that's interesting. From headline I had assumed we're talking
| post op
| noduerme wrote:
| I'm going in for facial blurring surgery like that gentleman next
| week. I'm hopeful it will help with my social anxiety.
| suyash wrote:
| Every hospital bed should have a comfortable pair of noise
| cancelling headphones with a variety of music for patient
| comfort.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Music might be nice - but I'd prioritize _comfy_ noise
| cancelling headphones and sleep masks, so the poor patients can
| get some sleep amid the hospital 's beeping gadgets, hard
| surfaces, and blinkenlights.
| wrp wrote:
| I recently attended someone in the hospital. The constant
| beeping and alarms round the clock prevented any deep sleep
| for days, and seemed to hinder recovery.
| macNchz wrote:
| This is a strange feature of hospitals that seems very much
| like we should know better, yet it's pervasive. Hospital-
| acquired delirium is very common and awful, and is
| associated with bad outcomes after leaving the hospital--
| higher risk of death, and ongoing dementia-like problems.
|
| We know sleep is so critically important to health, yet
| everything about most hospitals seems basically
| incompatible with proper sleep: beeping, lights, middle-of-
| the-night blood draws, shared rooms, no sense of day or
| night. Not dissimilar to how how we know that people make
| terrible decisions when they're sleep deprived, but
| continue to have resident doctors work unreasonable hours,
| this is a status quo bias that harms people.
| analog8374 wrote:
| I have seen the same. Literally crazy, right?
|
| The hospital reminds me of Walmart. Soulless as a bag of
| hammers but technically proficient and efficient.
| Carnivorous. Insectile.
| alt227 wrote:
| No thanks, who knows where those ear cups have been!
| mikkupikku wrote:
| That will be $500, plus $2/minute, plus tip.
| gniv wrote:
| I will have surgery soon. If I ask the surgeon to allow me to
| listen to music during the surgery, will they allow it? I know it
| depends on hospital/surgeon/etc, but I'm wondering how much
| doctors are willing to deviate from protocol in general.
| have_faith wrote:
| Not the same but I wore ear buds and listened to music while
| having a tooth pulled, they didn't mind.
| devilbunny wrote:
| Depends on the surgery and how you want to listen.
|
| Ask to have it played in the room? Sure. Want to listen on your
| own device? We don't want to be responsible for loss or damage
| to that device. Want to use earbuds? Same problem if you're
| going to be sedated at all, plus there is also the risk of
| damage to you if there's metal anywhere.
|
| One of the most commonly used instruments in surgery is
| electrocautery. A large pad is placed on (usually) a leg and is
| one electrode; the other is the instrument tip that does the
| burning. In theory, any metal in the current path could be a
| point for arcing. This is why you are asked to remove piercings
| (see your piercer for silicone plugs to fill the holes during
| surgeries). We don't want to torch you.
|
| I'm an anesthesiologist. Some of the risks we are guarding
| against are more theoretical than practical, but until the
| 1950's all useful anesthetic gases were flammable and so
| protocols were focused on not setting the patients or the
| operating room on fire, and while we no longer have conductive
| floors and grounding chains around our waists, we do still
| worry about setting patients on fire (alcohol is still a common
| solvent for skin prep solutions). And we don't want to lose or
| damage your stuff.
| gniv wrote:
| Thanks, that's useful. My procedure is supposed to be 2
| hours, laparoscopic. I will ask but without getting my hopes
| up.
| squigz wrote:
| How often do patients request this? Do surgeons ever say no?
| I would think there's a risk of distraction here.
| moron4hire wrote:
| I wore a VR headset during a "simple" outpatient surgery with
| local anesthetic. The anesthetic wore off halfway through. The
| VR headset did not help. I nearly passed out from the pain.
| alentred wrote:
| I wonder what kind/style of music was used in the study. A
| further study might even try comparing different music styles.
| Razengan wrote:
| Man, all these "study finds" about things that are intuitively
| obvious to most humans, but others need "studies" to believe.
| squigz wrote:
| That isn't the point of studies finding results that seem
| "intuitive"
|
| The point is that designing laws, regulations, guidelines,
| safety standards, etc, based on "intuition" is not very
| rational.
| Razengan wrote:
| I recall seeing some fairly befuddling ones, like "Study
| finds that a green environment with plants & flowers reduces
| depression" etc., how do you even quantify this into numbers?
|
| I tell you I feel good if there's more greenery in the city,
| you want proof to see "how" good before you build more parks?
| squigz wrote:
| > I recall seeing some fairly befuddling ones, like "Study
| finds that being in a green environment with plants &
| flowers reduces depression" etc., how do you even quantify
| this into numbers?
|
| "Effects of things on depression" doesn't seem like such a
| crazy thing to need to quantify.
|
| > I tell you I feel good if there's more greenery in the
| city, you want proof to see "how" good before you build
| more parks?
|
| A very disingenuous comparison, I think. There's a pretty
| big difference between that and "What is the effect of
| certain environmental stimuli during surgery"
|
| I'd really rather not have surgeons explore this question
| on their own.
|
| I don't disagree that we don't need nearly as much data on
| some things as others - but I do still want data supporting
| reasons to spend millions of public dollars.
| harry8 wrote:
| Well even if you are sure about your intuition in the
| knowledge that this confidence by humans has led to huge
| problems and tragedies in the past, you still want to have
| a good estimate of the effect size.
|
| How much resource to allocate to this treatment vs other
| treatments having a positive effect.
|
| Somewhere there ends up being a trade off that I will
| caricature as "Do we want another hospital OR another
| park?"
|
| (All the above is idealised, the biggest win that moves the
| efficient frontier outwards is effectively fighting
| corruption and being vigilant defending the gains made.
| This seems to be universal across countries and cultures).
| heelix wrote:
| When covid hit, my wife showed stroke symptoms - half her face
| stopped working (bell's palsy). She had an MRI as part of the
| diagnostic. As part of it, the operator asked her if she wanted
| to have some music. Yes please, some soft 80's love songs.
|
| "Welcome to the jungle, we got fun and games..."
|
| It was not the calming music she was expecting. She still jokes
| about it.
| kunley wrote:
| The crucial issue is: what kind of music. A lot of what's
| nowadays called music is actually rather a "sounds with some
| beat" category.
| arcanemachiner wrote:
| Damn kids and their hibbity hoppity...
| lleu wrote:
| Different frequencies, different arrangement of tones and
| melodies, production and tonal qualities of the recording,
| and all manner of composition variations have different
| effects.
|
| It might be crass way to say it, but it's a real worthwhile
| line of inquiry.
|
| Don't think you can smack any beat on someone's head and it
| will cure cancer. It's not all equal.
|
| Broad strokes here... if you look at another vibrational
| medium for parallels: the colour red can indicate something
| about the chemical contents of a material, and thus the
| effects it may have. A soft black carrot may not have the
| same beneficial qualities as a crisp red, purple, or white
| carrot...
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| What I'm hearing is "it's different music." Why does this
| justify a reduction to "sounds with a beat"?
| lleu wrote:
| In this case, I see multiple parties resorting to
| pedantry over a legitimate point of discussion, reducing
| to mud slinging over semantics. The point stands.
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| What's the point that stands? How do you justify the
| initial framing of "sounds over a beat"
| lleu wrote:
| I was pretty clear in what I said about music. I wasn't
| the one who made that remark, so I don't have anything to
| justify except my own statements.
| iterance wrote:
| I think you maybe just don't like it?
| cobri wrote:
| From the study: "The musical pieces were selected based on
| their slow and meditative tempo (60-100 beats per minute), and
| only non -lyrical instrumental piano or flute based versions
| were chosen.The flute version which was preferred by most
| patients was a combination of Raga Yaman and Raga Kirwani. Raga
| Yaman is bright and uplifting and Raga Kir wani is known for
| its soothing and calming effects. Combining these two
| Hindustani classical ragas provides musically uplifting
| qualities that could be helpful in reducing the stress
| associated with surgical procedures and control the hemodynamic
| responses to surgery. Noise cancelling headphoneswere used to
| play the instrumental pieces at 60db."
| simonask wrote:
| Music major here. Surprise, all music you know is "sounds with
| some beat".
|
| I don't know what counts as Music to you, but I sure hope
| you're not out here trying to promote your particular taste as
| somehow more refined, because we know a lot about how that is
| usually just good old classist, generational, or racist biases
| peeking out.
| kunley wrote:
| Who is "we", this magical entity eager to accuse somebody for
| classism and/or racism? Who are you speaking for? Because for
| sure not for the entire HN user base
| dmoy wrote:
| I once played a song that I swear had no verifiable beat. It
| was some insane Stravinsky piece, sounded like random-ass
| noise.
|
| But other than weird avant-garde stuff that seems to
| intentionally try to not have a beat, I agree all music tends
| to be sounds with some beat.
| Madmallard wrote:
| I think the accusers here are far more likely to be the
| prejudiced ones
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| Music you like.
| npteljes wrote:
| In case anyone else is also interested in the "what kind of
| music", this is straight from the study:
|
| >>The patients were asked to choose their preferred music from
| two prerecorded instrumental musical pieces instituted as the
| music therapy. We used non lyrical, soft, slow tempo, relaxing
| instrumental musical pieces of either flute [click here for
| audio]or piano [click here for audio]as the choices presented to
| the patient.The musical pieces were selected based on their slow
| and meditative tempo (60-100 beats per minute), and only non
| -lyrical instrumental piano or flute based versions were
| chosen.The flute version which was preferred by most patients was
| a combination of Raga Yaman and Raga Kirwani. Raga Yaman is
| bright and uplifting and Raga Kir wani is known for its soothing
| and calming effects. Combining these two Hindustani classical
| ragas provides musically uplifting qualities that could be
| helpful in reducing the stress associated with surgical
| procedures and control the hemodynamic responses to surgery.
| Noise cancelling headphoneswere used to play the instrumental
| pieces at 60db. The musical piece was played for the entire
| duration of the surgery on loop using blue tooth connectivity of
| the headphones with a mobile phone.<<
| fnord77 wrote:
| why did op take "indian study" out of the title?
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