Jorge Moreno, MD, noticed that his patients being treated for COVID-19 felt down and isolated.
“The patients were elderly or lived in long term facilities and they were super isolated,” explained Moreno. “They can’t get visitors. They see us with these big suits without a face coming in to talk to them.”
Moreno and resident Catherine Mezzacappa, MD, MPH, started visiting patient rooms. One older woman had gastrointestinal symptoms and her nausea made eating impossible. She was very depressed. They began to interact with her. Her room lights were off. The television was off. She didn’t want to video chat with her loved ones. She proclaimed that during her 89 years of life, that this was the toughest thing she had gone through.
Then Moreno asked the magic question, “Do you like music?” to which she proclaimed, “I really like Dean Martin.”
Moreno and Mezzacappa had a thought; what if they figured out how to play some Dean Martin for her and return that afternoon with the surprise?
Later that day, the duo grabbed an iPad, brought it into the patient’s room, and played her favorite Dean Martin songs, “Everybody Loves Somebody” and “Volare.”
“Music filled the room for a couple of minutes, and she sat up, which she had not done for us by that point and was smiling,” said Moreno.
They wondered what other patients could benefit from the newly christened “Music Rounds.” One patient loved the Beatles, so they played a few songs for her on the day of her hospital discharge. She laughed aloud and was transformed to another time and place. She even started sharing some antics from her younger years and how each Beatles song reminded her of a different suitor.
They returned to the 89-year woman’s room who, with her spirits raised, requested Neil Diamond. Even though not everyone in the room was a Boston Red Sox fan, they started off with a “Sweet Caroline” sing-a-long.
“I think in this crazy world, we have to find ways of interacting and little things like music have been helpful,” Moreno said. “At the moment, we were just trying to bring some joy into a patient’s life, but obviously music is healing. We were doing something for the whole person, not just focusing on their disease. It was very rewarding for us to see her smile.”
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