Listening to music helps relieve pain in people who suffer from chronic arthritis or other conditions. Researchers from Ohio found that when patients with chronic pain listened to music for an hour everyday for a week, their levels of pain, depression and disability declined, radio reported.
They also felt empowered to help themselves feel better, which appeared to drive the improvement in depression. It did not matter what kind of music they listened to.
To investigate this, the researchers studied 60 African-American and Caucasian adults who had pain in the neck, back or joints for the past six months. Often, the pain was related to arthritis, but in many cases, patients had received no specific diagnosis.
The researchers randomly assigned a group of patients to listen music of their choice; they assigned another group to listen to music the researchers provided or to stick with standard care alone.