The purpose of this exploratory pilot study is to evaluate the safety, tolerability, acceptability and effect of music therapy on various symptoms cancer patients at the end of life and the putative biochemical and physiological correlates accompanying the changes. The research design for this project is a randomized, controlled trial comparing music therapy to a control group of cancer patients admitted to a Palliative Medicine inpatient unit. Music therapy has been shown to enhance mood in cancer inpatients and to increase saliva Ig A levels post-music therapy compared to pre-therapy. Music therapy has also been shown to produce a decline in commonly associated physiological stress parameters i.e. plasma cortisol levels and autonomic nervous system function. We hypothesize that music therapy may also affect other biochemical/physiological/immune measures of stress and inflammation in cancer patients.
The specific aims of the study are to: 1. evaluate the safety, tolerability and acceptability effect of a 40 minute music therapy session in cancer patients at the end of life, 2. describe the effect of music therapy on selected cancer-related symptoms, biochemical and physiological parameters (plasma cortisol, heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, pupil size), and inflammatory/immune reactants: C-reactive protein (CRP), Interferon-gamma (INF-y), Interleukin-6 (IL-6), and Interleukin-10 (IL-10), parameters frequently abnormal in advanced cancer patients, 3. compare the above results to those of a control group who continue there usual activity for 40 minutes, and 4. analyze the correlation between selected symptom changes and biochemical/physiological/ inflammatory/immune parameters with paired T-tests. The research site for this study is the Palliative Medicine Unit (PMU) of The Taussig Cancer Center at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, a large, private, non-profit tertiary care medical center. The music therapy will be provided by trained, board-certified music therapists with experience providing music therapy for cancer patients at the end of life. Our study is significant because it has the potential to provide novel preliminary information about the side effects, tolerability, acceptability and preliminary data on the effects of music therapy on selected symptoms in advanced cancer patients in a randomized trial at the end of life.
