Bringing harmony to the hospital: music as therapy

Music has the potential to make everything better, doesn’t it? Arguably, this is so in any and all situations. In difficult circumstances, it can help us endure. Music can take the edge off the pain, in both body and mind. No wonder there is a keen interest in exploring its potential to help us in various healthcare settings and this has been the subject of many Cochrane reviews. 

Hot off the press: catch this Cochrane evidence!

New and updated Cochrane reviews are now published daily

If your idea of a present is a new or updated Cochrane review then it’s now Christmas every day with the arrival of Publish When Ready here in Cochraneland. In a huge change to the system for publishing reviews and protocols in the Cochrane Library, new arrivals appear daily, throughout the day, instead of once a month. In the time it takes me to make a cup of tea, a new review may have popped into the Library, ready for my consumption. It’s all rather exciting! It’s also rather alarming, as I have the distinct feeling that with such a rapid flow of  evidence I may miss things and fail to shout about stuff that you might like to know about. It may calm down (or I may speed up!) but with the sudden arrival of a very large amount of new evidence I thought I’d give you a bit of a round-up. So here are my picks of the week on surgery, drugs and rock’n’roll, with some talking treatment thrown in.

Taking a complex approach to depression and anxiety

If you’re making a trifle, you expect to put in lots of different ingredients, but opinion varies about what should go in. Are those vaguely stale-tasting sponge fingers vital for the optimal trifle or does Swiss roll provide a superior foundation? Some consider jelly to be a vital element, while others wouldn’t consider it. Fruit – tinned or fresh, and what sort? Cream or custard? Chocolate shavings (for the aspirational trifle), sugar strands or good old silver balls? The truth is, we don’t know which elements and which combinations work best, though every trifle maker will have their own ideas about that. The process may be standardized but the form of the thing will be adapted. A key question then is did it hit the spot and leave your consumers feeling much better for it?