Can Music Help Patients Better Respond to Palliative Care?

There are few interactions in the medical world that aren’t accompanied by at least some tension. When you’re talking about palliative care, you’re talking about a very particular set of challenging conditions for doctors and patients alike. Finding the right balance between addressing someone’s underlying health issues and keeping them in the right frame of mind can be a challenge — and it’s what’s led one Austin hospital to add vinyl to its collection of medical tools.

In a recent NPR article, Olivia Aldridge wrote about the work being done by the ATX-VINyL program at the University of Texas at Austin’s Dell Medical School. (That’s an acronym for “Audio Therapy eXperience-Vinyl for Inpatients Near the end of Life.”) It was created by Tyler Jorgensen, M.D., whose background includes work in both emergency medicine and palliative care settings.

As Dr. Jorgensen told NPR, the idea for the program came about when he noticed that one of his patients became much more responsive when music was playing — specifically, Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back in Town.” Dr. Jorgensen told NPR that the patient became “more honest and vulnerable about the health challenges he was facing” in the presence of music he loved.

“[I]t just struck me that all this time I’ve been practicing medicine, there’s such a powerful tool that is almost universal to the human experience, which is music, and I’ve never tapped into it,” Dr. Jorgensen said.

Can Music Really Improve Our Health?

Like musical taste itself, it’s a very personal matter

In 2023, Dr. Jorgensen gave an interview to Dell Medical School’s website where he expounded at length on the science behind this approach — and why vinyl played such a significant role in it.

“Many forms of recorded music have been shown to lower pain scores, decrease anxiety and depression, and promote loved ones’ well-being,” he said. “However, we feel that vinyl records in particular — in contrast to more readily available electronic modalities of music — provide a more unique and multisensory experience.”

“We have found that the record player and records are like a time machine for our patients, transforming them back to a happier time in their lives,” he added. Of the program’s current library, one particular choice has become a clear favorite: Dr. Jorgensen told NPR that Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours has received the most requests.

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Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal. At InsideHook, he has…