Music therapy improves patient experience and outcomes in the cardiac ICU

Music therapy could significantly reduce heart rate, blood pressure and patient–ventilator asynchronies for patients admitted to the cardiac intensive care unit (ICU), according to research being presented at ACC Latin America 2025 taking place September 18-20 in Mexico City.

Music therapy is the use of music and its elements to reduce stress and improve quality of life. A music therapist uses music therapy as a non-pharmacological and non-invasive intervention to improve a patient's physical, social, communicative, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual health and wellbeing.

Music therapy has beneficial effects on physiological distress variables such as heart rate and blood pressure, suggesting that music therapy can be a non-pharmacological and non-invasive intervention to improve physiological stability in a high stress setting such as the cardiac intensive care unit."

Ilani Paola Santoyo Pérez, MD, medical student at the University of Guanajuato in León, Guanajuato, México, and first author of the study

The goal of the study was to analyze music therapy's impact on coronary care patients in the cardiac ICU. The researchers monitored physiological variables in 24 patients admitted to the cardiac ICU between July and September 2024. Participants were ages 18 and older. All patients in the study were alert and had no hearing impairments.

Each patient was assigned to either a music therapy group or a control group with standard care. In the music therapy group, a melody was presented to the patients for 45 minutes at 15 decibels for five days. The results found that patients in the music therapy group had a significant decrease in heart rate, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure and patient–ventilator asynchronies, compared to the patients in the control group.

"Music therapy is recognized as a standard of care for critically ill patients worldwide, as established in the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) guidelines. Clinicians should therefore consider incorporating music therapy into their practice, as it is a safe, low-cost, non-pharmacological and non-invasive intervention that complements conventional treatments," Pérez said. "By reducing physiological distress, enhancing patient comfort, and promoting holistic, patient-centered care, music therapy ultimately improves both the patient experience and clinical outcomes."