Tami Briggs on utilizing music in the dying process

Music: A Transformational Tool in the Health Care Setting

Music speaks to our hearts — often without words. It comforts during the heightened stress of pain, serious illness, and end-of-life care. It also contributes to creating an environment — an intimate, sacred space — for the terminally ill, the transitioning person, the family, and the attending medical staff. Music adds richness and depth and tenderness to the sacred experience of dying. As a therapeutic harpist, some of my most meaningful and deeply spiritual experiences have been playing the harp at the hospital bedside while working with a chaplain.

For example, the hospital chaplain I was working with asked me to come to the intensive care unit and play for a patient who was dying. His family was requesting my services. The patient, Thomas,* had been hospitalized for three months. When I arrived in Thomas’s room with my harp, there was a mixed feeling of relief and grief. He had been suffering for a long time. Although the family was very sad about his earthly departure, they were also relieved that his agony was almost over.

They were a quiet family and asked me to play some traditional Christian hymns. I chose Amazing Grace, Abide with Me, Beautiful Savior, Rock of Ages, and How Great Thou Art. As I played, Thomas visibly relaxed. After playing several hymns, I began to play non-familiar, “drifty” music, which helps the patient let go and transition. As each selection was slower and
s-l-o-w-e-r, his breathing became slower along with the music. The circle of connection was between his belabored breathing and the slow rhythm of the music, until the music was barely pulsing and peacefully, he took his last breath. This is the principle of entrainment where our bodies synchronize with the pulse or rhythm of the music — a very subtle but powerful principle.**

Hearing is the last bodily function to stop. As mentioned in Don Campbell’s The Mozart Effect, “Songs, prayers, and chants that surround the body after death create a powerful vehicle for the soul to travel beyond the physical senses.” [1] I continued to play while the chaplain gathered the family and hospital staff around Thomas’s bed and said a final farewell prayer. The room filled with beautiful light and a lovely, ethereal feeling — a very spiritual moment for all of us witnessing his transition.

Playing live music in tandem with a chaplain is a very special experience, but live musicians are not always available. CDs are the next best thing! In fact, two hospitals in the Twin Cities area (Woodwinds Health Campus and St. Francis Regional Medical Center) have put CD players and a supply of healing CDs by every bedside. There are many other facilities across the country currently securing funding for this project. Part of a larger vision, a “boombox by every bed” playing healing music in every patient’s room, as well as at every nurse’s station, changes the entire corporate culture of our hospitals/health care facilities in a dramatic, positive way. Music is an important and recognized contribution to transforming our healthcare system.

 

* Name changed for confidentiality.

** A CD suggestion that incorporates the entrainment principle is “Calm as the Night” (created and produced by Musical Reflections).

[1] Don Campbell: http://www.mozarteffect.com/Learn/read.html