This month it will be 7 years since we lost my stepdad to lung cancer. I remember the 9 months from diagnosis to death like it happened just last year. All of the unknowns along with the tests and treatments created a lot of anxiety for all of us. My stepdad wanted to be strong and put on a good face for me, my mom, and his two granddaughters, but it was evident that he was struggling with anxiety as we all were. The treatment for cancer is bad; the waiting to find out if the treatment worked is worse.
So, as I was looking through some research I came across a recent review of alternative medicine that was looking at ways to reduce anxiety in chemotherapy patients without medications. Because of what I went through with my stepdad I knew that this could be beneficial to cancer sufferers, as anxiety can create its own set of medical issues.
The study was rather small and took place in Taiwan, but it had promising results that may provide some easy options in reducing anxiety. The most successful outcome was with music therapy. Patients who had a 60 minute music therapy session had significant anxiety reduction over those who did not. There was another group who had 30 minutes of verbal-guided relaxation; they had better outcomes than the no treatment group but not as good of outcome as the music therapy group
The article was published in the Journal of Clinical Nursing. Although small, research such as this is a step forward when looking for ways to help those who are in a weakened state without adding additional medications to their daily regimen. It is no surprise that music therapy or guided relaxation helped reduce anxiety, but it is good to see that the impact of these often used techniques can benefit those with more reasons to be anxious than your average healthy adult.