Can Arts Be Used as Pain Relief?

Why It Matters

Integrating music into surgical care can cut opioid prescriptions, easing the opioid crisis while improving patient outcomes and reducing costs.

Key Takeaways

• Recorded music lowers pre‑surgical anxiety more than meds
• Patients need fewer sedatives and opioids with intra‑operative music
• Music intervention is low‑cost, side‑effect free pain management
• Reducing opioid use post‑surgery curbs dependency risk significantly
• Ignoring arts in healthcare compromises safety and ethical standards

Summary

The video explores how incorporating the arts—specifically recorded music—into pre‑surgical and peri‑surgical environments can serve as an effective pain‑relief strategy. It argues that music is a simple, low‑cost intervention that can dramatically improve patient comfort without the pharmacologic side effects of traditional anxiolytics.

Data cited indicate that patients exposed to music experience lower anxiety levels than those given anti‑anxiety medication, and they subsequently require reduced doses of sedatives and opioids. This reduction translates into measurable cost savings and a decrease in medication‑related complications, particularly important amid the ongoing opioid epidemic.

A key quote emphasizes that “recorded music can actually reduce levels of anxiety even more than anti‑anxiety medications do, but without the side effects.” The speaker highlights how postoperative opioid prescriptions often trigger dependency, positioning music as a natural analgesic that can break this cycle.

The implication is clear: healthcare systems should adopt music‑based protocols to enhance patient outcomes, lower drug utilization, and fulfill an ethical responsibility to provide holistic, non‑pharmacologic care. Such adoption could play a meaningful role in curbing opioid misuse while delivering cost‑effective, patient‑centered treatment.

Original Description

Can arts be used as pain relief?

Daisy Fancourt is the author of Art Cure, a book which really lives up to its subtitle, “The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health”. We are reading it this month for New Scientist Book Club.

We spoke to her about how everything from music to magic tricks can improve our health, as well as how a meeting with Brian Eno helped improve treatment for surgical patients, why governments shouldn’t be cutting back on arts funding, and how we can all make some simple changes to inject more of the arts into our own lives, with great health effects.

Watch the full interview: https://www.newscientist.com/video/2519746-professor-daisy-fancourt-on-the-life-changing-power-of-the-arts/