Abstract
The effects of music and diazepam on state anxiety and psychological functionings in 49 surgical patients admitted to the National Cancer Center Hospital were investigated.Subjects who had medium anxiety were selected. Fourteen patients were assigned to nontreatment group, 19 to a music group and 16 to a diazepam group.1) State anxiety measured by STAI significantly decreased from 3 days before operation to just preperative state in the diazepam group, while in the non-treatment group, a slight increase in state anxiety was observed.2) With respect to the stroop color word test, increased performance of confictual color word tasks under music therapy, seems to indicate increase ability to focus attention on the task, whereas significantly decreased performance on simple color naming tasks after injection of diazepam, may be a result of distubed functioning of attention.3) The critical flicker fusion test, which is an overall index of cortical activity, was markedly lowerd by an injection of diazepam, while under music therapy, such a change was not evident.4) From this evidence it may be concluded taht music has asedative effect on preperative patients and that utilization of the sedative effects of music shows promise as a therapeutic aid.
