Cancer Pain Reduced By Scenes of Nature

Experts has suggested that showing relaxing pictures of idyllic scenes and playing out relaxing sounds at a cancer patient's bed can reduce the feeling of pain. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, United States set up a series of tests analysing patients undergoing bone marrow aspiration and biopsy (BMAB) - known to be a particularly painful form of cancer treatment.

However, the researchers believe they have come up with a cheap, inexpensive way of making painful procedures like BMAB more bearable.

"We wanted to find a way to improve their experience," the BBC quoted Noah Lechtzin, from the department of medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, as saying.

"So we did a study in which patients were assigned to either standard care, to have the procedure done with a nature scene and accompanying nature sounds, or a city scene and city sounds.

"Our scene was a very open picture that had running water, the sounds had birds chirping and wind rustling through trees," Lechtzin said.

The nature scene consisted of typically relaxing images, such as Victoria Falls in Zambia, painted onto bed curtains surrounding the patient as he or she is being treated.

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The city scene had pictures of your average urban environment. Busy streets, people rushing - an altogether more stressful experience.

To add to the atmosphere and help with the process, the nature scene added sounds of birds chirping and wind rustling through trees was played to the patient through headphones.

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For the city scene, the noise of traffic was played instead.

A control group - which had neither nature nor city scenes - on average marked BMAB as 5.7 on the pain scale.

But, those patients exposed to the nature sounds and images recorded an average of 3.9 on the pain scale - a significant reduction.

The city scene had no significant effect on the ranking - patients found the treatment just as painful.

Source-ANI