Book cart gets the boot!
Tape library offers selections for all tastes
The traditional book cart that volunteers take from room to room in hospitals has been replaced with an audio tape cart at Immanuel St. Joseph’s Mayo Health System in Mankato, MN. Instead of the latest novel, patients select from a variety of tapes. To listen to their selection, each patient receives a headset and a tape player in a canvas bag with handles that can be attached to the bed rail. The volunteers track the tapes on a sign-out sheet that is kept with the cart.
"Our goal is to give people a diversion that takes the edge off their pain. There is a huge body of evidence to indicate that when people are enjoying what they are listening to, their endorphins are doing a lot of healing," says Laura Rydholm, RN, MS, health ministries facilitator at the health system.
Rydholm helped initiate the creation of a tape library by conducting a pilot study on the effect of music on a patient’s recovery. Patients scheduled for knee replacement surgery were invited to participate in the study when they arrived for preoperative teaching, and about 20 volunteered.
One group was allowed to select music, and the other listened to tapes that were provided. Rydholm discovered that the patients who listened to the tapes of their choice during the recovery process required less pain medication, were flexing their operative knee better, were walking further distances by their fourth postoperative day, and had a shorter length of stay than the patients who did not select their own music.
To build the tape library, Rydholm initially solicited donations from staff members, but the selection was not quite right for patients. She then asked administration for funding and received $500 to purchase tapes. A good portion of the selection was purchased at a Christian music store because Rydholm observed that many people liked instrumental hymns. "We are in a fairly rural Minnesota area, and people like to listen to hymns. We figured they would be beneficial for someone who wasn’t a Christian because there are no words," she explains.
It’s not just surgery patients who benefit from the tape library, however. Music can help relax most patients and reduce stress and is therefore beneficial to people with cardiac problems, respiratory problems, hypertension, and diabetes. "Music will help a person have a more positive hospital experience. At the very least, it is a diversion. There seems to be sensory overload, whether it’s a squeaking wheelchair or a beeping IV pump. When people put that headset on, all those noises are obliterated," says Rydholm.
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