Marianne Strebely, severely injured in an auto accident, lay in the operating room of St. Luke's Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, awaiting anesthesia. Surrounded by a surgical team, Strebely was hooked up to a computer that monitored her heart rate and brain waves. She was also hooked up, by earphones, to a tape recorder playing Vivaldi's The Four Seasons.

During the operation, the surgical team listened to Mozart from another tape recorder. "Music reduces staff tension in the operating room," says Dr. Clyde L. Nash, Strebely's surgeon, "and also helps relax the patient."

"The music was better than medication," Strebely claims, comparing this surgery with a previous one. "I remained calm before the operation and didn't need as much sedation."

Nash is one of many physicians who are finding that music, used with conventional therapies, can help heal the sick. Adds Dr. Mathew H. W. Lee, acting director of the Rusk Rehabilitation Institute at New York University Medical Center, "We've seen confirmation of music's benefits in helping to avoid serious complications during illness, enhancing patients' well-being and shortening hospital stays.

At California State University in Fresno, psychologist Janet Lapp studied 30 migraine-headache sufferers for five weeks. Some of the 30 listened to their favorite music, others used biofeedback and relaxation techniques; a control group did neither. All three groups received similar medication. Music proved the most effective supplemental therapy, especially over the long term. A year later, the patients who had continued to listen to music reported one-sixth as many headaches as before; these were also less severe and ended more quickly.

Clinical researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Nursing, and at Georgia Baptist Medical Center in Atlanta found that premature babies gained weight faster and were able to use oxygen more efficiently when they listen to soothing music mixed with voices or womb sounds. At Tallahassee (Florida) Memorial Regional Medical Center, premature and low-birth-weight infants exposed to an hour and a half of soothing vocal music each day averaged only 11 days in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit, compared with 16 days for a control group.

At Baltimore, Maryland hospital, classical music was provided in the critical-care units. "Half an hour of music produced the same effect as ten milligrams of Valium," says Dr. Raymond Bahr, head of the coronary-care unit. "Some patients who had been awake for three to four straight days were able to fall a deep sleep."

How does music help? Some studies show it can lower the blood pressure, basal-metabolism and respiration rates, thus lessening the biological responses to stress. Other studies suggest music may also increase production of endorphin (natural pain relievers) and sIgA (salivary immunoglobulin A). sIgA speeds healing, reduces danger of infection and control heart rate.

Music therapy is proving especially effective in three key medical areas:

1.Pain, anxiety and depress. "When I had my first baby," says Susan Koletsky, "I was in difficult labor for two days. The second time around, I wanted to avoid the pain." Relaxing jazz calmed her in the delivery room; Bach and Beethoven paced her during contraction. Finally, Brahms's Symphony No. 1 energized her for the last phrase of delivery. "The music produced a much easier experience," she claims.

Cancer patients often refuse to talk with doctors and nurses in hospital rooms. "But music therapist can give them positive outlook," says Dr. Kepler, director of the Ireland Cancer Center at Cleveland. "That makes it easier to communicate and encourage them to cooperate more in the treatment."

A 17-year-old patient at the center, with extensive skin damage in her cancer treatments, was withdrawn and silent. When music therapist Deforia Lane saw her, the teenager was wrapped in gauze, sitting in a wheelchair.

Lane gave her a quick lesson in monochord, then they played and sang together for 45 minutes. After the lesson, the patient's mother told Lane in a voice choked with emotion. "This is the first time Ginny has shown any happiness since she was brought to the hospital.

2.Mental, emotional and physical handicaps. A school in the United States helps youngsters with mental problems ranging from emotional disturbances to autism to learning disabilities. Ruth Adler, a music therapist for more than 20 years, uses song and music to help the children learn. "While the seriously handicapped may ignore other kinds of stimulation, they respond to music," she says.

One five-year-old lacked fine musical skills, didn't know left from right, and was so shy he refused to learn. The boy became fascinated with the xylophone, however, and through this interest Adler taught him numbers, left from right, and the concept of sharing. Eventually he learned to read music and play the piano, and he even led the group in singing.

At Colorado State University's Center for Biomedical Research in Music, ten stroke victims were hooked up to sensors that measured muscle activity in their legs and the timing of their strides as they walked to a rhythmic dance piece. Over four weeks, the patients were tested first without, then with, the music. Significant improvement in stride symmetry was seen when the patients walked to musical accompaniment. "In almost every case," says Michael Thaut, director of the center, "the timing of the stride improved with music."

3.Neurological disorders. Dr. Oliver Sacks, whose work with sleeping-sickness victims led to the book and movie Awakenings, reports that patients suffering neurological disorders who cannot talk or move are often able to sing, and sometimes even dance, to music. "The power of music is remarkable in such people," Sacks observes.

Studies indicate both hemispheres of the brain are involved in processing music. Dr. Sacks explains, "The neurological basis of musical responses is robust and may even survive damage to both hemisphere."

In a group session for elderly patients at New York City hospital, a 70-year-old stroke victim sat by himself, never speaking. One day, when therapist Connie Tomaino played an old folk song on her accordion, the man hummed. Tomaino played the tune regularly after that. Finally the man sang some of the words. "Before you knew it," says Tomaino, "he was talking."

Music's therapeutic benefits, of course, aren't confined to those who are ill. "Apart from the simple enjoyment that music provides, we're learning how much it can also help us in our daily personal lives," says Ireland Cancer Center's Dr. Berger. To "psych up" for important presentations and meetings, Berger hums the theme music from the movie Rocky or the triumphal march from the opera Ada. "Music can also act as a tension — or pain — reliever for something as routine as going to the dentist," he says, "or it can simply give expression to our moods."

To gain the full benefit of music, you need to work it into your daily schedule. During his lunch hour, Jeffrey Scheffel closes his office door at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, slips on a pair of earphones and, leaning back in his desk chair, tunes in some light jazz or Mozart, depending on the mood he wants to build. "It rejuvenates me," explains Scheffel, research administrator at the famed medical center. "It gives my brain a break, lets me focus on something else for a few minutes, and helps me through the rest of the day."

Dana Gentry recently discovered the added power that music has when we share it with others. One of Gentry's earliest memories is of her grandmother holding her in her arms, singing their song, "True Love." Now Gentry's grandmother is in a nursing house with her mind lost to Alzheimer's disease.

One day Gentry knelt beside the woman's wheelchair and sang "their" song. "At first," Gentry says, "I noticed a glimmer of recognition on her face. Then she joined and sang the entire song in harmony. When tears rolled down my cheeks, she cried, too, as if realizing what she had accomplished. We sing our song during every visit now. It turns a sad moment into a happy time."

Few people understand therapeutic powers of music better than music therapist Deforia Lane. Five years ago, during her own struggle with cancer, singing helped her and took her mind off the disease. Since then, she has used the experience to help others. "Music is not magic," says the 44-year-old therapist with the warm smile and rich soprano voice. "But in the hospital or at home, for young people or older ones, it can be a good medicine that helps us all."

(Selected from Reader's Digest (Asia edition), October 1992, written by David M. Mazie)