Music Listening to Reduce Anxiety and Stress in Patients Undergoing Radiotherapy

Introduction: Music and music therapy are now widely used as non-pharmacological intervention techniques in different clinical and therapeutic settings.

Scientific literature includes a large number of studies structured according to scientific criteria and its presence is documented by the existence of numerous systematic reviews about this topic (including Cochrane Reviews). Some of these reviews, together with single studies, concern to the use of music in the hospital setting in different areas as: the pre-surgical and surgical phases, specific oncology interventions and also radiotherapy / chemiotherapy treatments. In these contexts the applicative experiences are generally characterized by two factors: the music therapy technique used that is the use of musical listening rather than active music therapy interventions (interaction between patient and therapist through musical instruments) and the possible effectiveness of music on momentary symptoms as anxiety, stress and pain deriving from illness conditions and / or from particularly invasive medical procedures.

The present study includes the use of musical listening related to the concept of "Music Medicine", a possibility of modifying the psycho-physiological state of the patient through the targeted use of musical pieces respondent to specific parameters and musical structures able to interact in particular conditions (such as illness, surgery, etc) with the psycho-somatic imbalances to which the person is subjected. On the other hand, it has been demonstrated that music can also significantly affect vital parameters and neurochemical processes leading to significant modifications of these aspects.

In particular, in this study, in addition to proposing a traditional listening method, the music used in one of the research arms will be composed of an artificial intelligence called "Melomics-Health" and created in collaboration with the Research Group in Biomimetics of the University of Malaga. This way of composing music gives the possibility to intervene on the design of the music itself, creating the necessary conditions for its use in the therapeutic field. Music can be composed on the basis of specific sound parameters and appropriate musical structures with the aim of achieving the intended therapeutic objective. In this direction, numerous studies have been undertaken whose initial results are really encouraging. One of the advantages of this technology is given by the possibility of forging and shaping the music according to the therapeutic objective, leaving to the artificial intelligence the task to produce it. This perspective represents an absolute innovation and creates considerable potentialities in the use of music listening aimed at the care and health of the individual. The concept above exposed concerning the action of sound and music on the individual together with the use of "Melomics-Health" technology, create the necessary conditions for the fulfillment of the proposed study.

Material and Methods: Sixty breast cancer surgical patients, candidates for post-operative radiotherapy with a healing purpose.