Effects of music therapy on cancer-related fatigue, anxiety, and depression in patients with digestive tumors: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

The Effect of Art on Premenstrual Syndrome Symptoms: A Randomized Controlled Study

Art-based interventions can serve as a complementary and alternative method in managing various illnesses. This study aimed to investigate the impact of art-based interventions on symptoms of Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS). This study was conducted between September and December 2022, involving 72 midwifery students with PMS (37 in the experimental group [EG] and 35 in the control group [CG]). Art-based interventions were applied to the EG weekly for 8 weeks, while the students in the CG continued with their usual coping habits. The data were collected using the Personal Information Form and the Premenstrual Syndrome Scale (PMSS). At the end of 8 weeks, both the EG and the CG were reassessed with the PMSS. The students who participated in the study were similar in terms of sociodemographic, obstetric, and medical characteristics ( P > .05). Analysis of the difference between pre- and posttest measurements revealed that the PMSS scores of the EG significantly decreased ( P = .000), whereas the PMSS scores of the CG did not improve ( P = .000). The findings of the study demonstrate that art-based interventions had a therapeutic effect on PMS symptoms.

Nonpharmacological interventions for cancer-related fatigue: A literature review

Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is a prevalent and debilitating side effect of cancer treatment that can persist for years posttreatment, significantly impacting patients' quality of life. Given the limited efficacy of pharmacological treatments, nonpharmacological interventions are gaining attention as effective management strategies for CRF. This review aims to provide an overview of the most common nonpharmacological interventions for CRF management, including exercise therapies, psychosocial interventions, sensory art therapy, light therapy, nutritional management, traditional Chinese medicine therapies, sleep management, combination therapy, and health education. By synthesizing the findings of high-quality literature, this review presents the definition of each therapy, along with their advantages and disadvantages in treating patients with CRF. Additionally, it addresses the role of oncology nurses in the nonpharmacological management of CRF. In summary, this review aims to inform oncology nurses about the prevalent nonpharmacological interventions for CRF and explore their clinical application to facilitate the development of effective CRF management strategies in clinical practice.

Effects of a Sound Intervention on Physical and Emotional Well-Being in Patients with Cancer: A Prospective Randomized Trial

AIM

Cancer remains a disease with a significant impact on morbidity and mortality but also on quality of life. This prospective randomized pilot study investigated the effects of a sound intervention on physical and emotional well-being in outpatients with cancer.

METHODS

Two self-applied sound interventions were used for this purpose, either active "music playing" with a body monochord or passive sound intervention with headphones to listen to a given music compilation. Interventions were carried out over a period of 4 weeks for at least 15 min in the evening before bedtime. The following self-assessment questionnaires were completed both at baseline and after 4 weeks to evaluate the response: the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Quality of Life Questionnaire (QLQ-C30), Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) for pain and fatigue, and the Fear of Progression (FoP) questionnaire. Primary endpoint of this exploratory trial was to describe the rate of patients with improvement in at least one dimension without worsening of any other.

RESULTS

73 patients (29 male, 44 female) were included in the study and randomized to either active (n = 34, 47%) or passive sound intervention (n = 39, 53%). Median age was 52.0 years (range 21-79). Fourteen patients (19%) stated that they were musically active. The sound intervention was carried out on a median of 26 days (range 5-28). A higher percentage of patients in the passive group reached the primary endpoint: n = 15 (39%) versus n = 9 (27%). Response differences in favour of the passive group were seen with the VAS fatigue and with QLQ-30 questionnaires. Overall, an improvement in QLQ-30 questionnaire was seen in 12 patients (31%) in the passive group versus 3 patients (9%). Moreover, sound intervention significantly improved social functioning and shortness of breath in the passive group according to QLQ-C30. Significant improvements were also noticed in the passive group in terms of affective reactions as a domain of the FoP questionnaire. No effects on pain or sleep quality could be observed.

CONCLUSION

A 4-week self-administered sound intervention was feasible in outpatients suffering from cancer. Using a panel of 5 questionnaires, passive sound interventions appeared to be more likely to positively influence patient-reported outcomes. In particular, a positive impact was documented in social functioning and fatigue.

Music Therapy in Preterm Infants Reduces Maternal Distress

Preterm delivery is a stressful event for mothers, posing them at risk for post-traumatic stress reactions. This study examined the degree of depressive symptoms and post-traumatic stress in mothers of preterm infants born before 32 gestational weeks depending on whether the infant received music therapy in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) or not. We included 33 mothers of preterm infants enrolled in a previously described prospective randomized controlled trial, of whom 18 received music therapy (mean mothers' age 34.1 ± 4.6 years) and 15 did not (mean mothers' age 29.6 ± 4.2). The degree of depressive symptoms, anxiety and acute stress reactions of these mothers were measured by using the German version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) and Impact of Events Scale-Revised (IES-R) one week after birth (T1) and at infants' hospital discharge (T2). 605 music therapy sessions with a mean duration of 24.2 ± 8.6 min (range 10 to 50 min) were conducted two times a week from the second week of life (T1) until discharge (T2) to the infants from the intervention group. The infants from the control group received standard medical care without music therapy. The mean total CES-D score decreased from T1 (mean 34.7, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) 31.1-38.1) until T2 in all mothers (mean 16.3, 95% CI 12.6-20.1). Mothers whose infants received music therapy showed stronger declines of depressive and stress symptoms (with music therapy: CES-D mean difference of total score 25.7, 95% CI 20.0-31.3, IES-R mean difference of total score 1.7, 95% CI 0.9-2.5, IES-R mean difference of subcategory hyperarousal 10.2, 95% CI 6.2-14.3; without music therapy: CES-D mean difference of total score 9.5, 95% CI 3.8-15.3, IES-R mean difference of total score 0.1, 95% CI -1.0-1.2, IES-R mean difference of subcategory hyperarousal 1.6, 95% CI -4.7-7.9). Effect sizes were strong for CES-D, IES-R, and the hyperarousal subcategory, moderate for intrusion, and low for avoidance. These findings show that mothers of preterm infants are highly susceptible to supportive non-medical interventions such as music therapy to reduce psychological symptoms and distress during their infants' NICU stay.

Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) in Patients With Colorectal Cancer

This study was conducted to analyze the relationship between cancer-related stress and the types of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) used by subjects diagnosed with colorectal cancer. The number of study subjects was 142, and for data analysis, descriptive statistics, t-test, χ2 test, logistic regression procedures were performed. Of the subjects, 114 were CAM users, who accounted for 79.6%. When it came to using CAM, 82 (72.6%) said they did "to prevent cancer recurrence." The most popular reason for not using CAM was "to focus on treatment as instructed by the doctor," with 22 (75.8%) respondents selecting the answer. Of those who used CAM, 79 (55.6%) said they took "dietary supplements," followed by 65 (45.8%) who picked "vitamins and minerals." Regarding CAM usage, ginger, aloe, swimming, and walking had the highest satisfaction (4.25 ± 0.71). The cancer-related stress of subjects who use CAM (18.21 ± 15.37) was higher than that of subjects who did not use CAM (10.11 ± 12.08). Logistic regression analysis determined that cancer-related stress were factors significantly associated with CAM use. Patients using CAM had higher cancer-related stress, suggesting that stress on cancer increased CAM interest. Safe and reliable CAM information and standardized recommendations should be provided to cancer survivors. We propose the development of training programs for CAM to improve communication between medical staff and patients and to protect patients.

Evaluation of the Efficacy of Artificial Neural Network-Based Music Therapy for Depression

In order to evaluate the therapeutic effect of music therapy on patients with depression, this paper proposes a CNN-based noise detection method with the combination of HHT and FastICA for noise removal, with good data support from the DBN model. DBN-based feature extraction and classification are completed. As the training process of DBN itself requires a large number of training samples, there are also disadvantages such as slow convergence speed and easy to fall into local minima, which lead to a large amount of effort and time, and the learning efficiency is relatively low. A DBN optimization algorithm based on artificial neural network was proposed to evaluate the efficacy of music therapy. First of all, through the comparison of music therapy experimental group and control group, to verify that music therapy is effective for the treatment of depressed patients. Secondly, we propose to optimize the selection of features based on the frequency band energy ratio and the sliding average sample entropy, respectively, and then to classify the EEG of depressed patients under different music perceptions by training the DBN model and continuously adjusting the parameters, combined with the surtax classifier, and the classification accuracy is high. In particular, it can detect the different effects of different music styles, which is of great significance for the selection of appropriate music for the treatment of depressed patients.

Curative effect of pop light music on depression patients based on improved fuzzy algorithm

With the aggravation of many social psychological and psychological stress factors, the high incidence rate of depression and depression has become a major problem which puzzles people’s health and even endangers life. Non drug therapy has become an effective alternative to drug therapy, which is in line with the new trend of natural medicine in the world. This paper will use the real world research method (RWS) to conduct a clinical trial of pop light music in the treatment of depression. Based on the fuzzy algorithm, a comprehensive evaluation system for the treatment of depression was established. By comparing and analyzing the main efficacy indexes between music group and traditional medicine group, we found that the cure rate, clinical control rate, significant efficiency, effective rate and ineffective rate of music therapy group were significantly better than those of drug group. Through the analysis of seven factors of HAMD (Hamilton Depression Scale) scale, we found that pop light music can improve the sleep status and physical symptoms of patients, and the improvement degree of music therapy is significantly better than that of drug therapy.

Multi-Modal Integration of EEG-fNIRS for Characterization of Brain Activity Evoked by Preferred Music

Music can effectively improve people's emotions, and has now become an effective auxiliary treatment method in modern medicine. With the rapid development of neuroimaging, the relationship between music and brain function has attracted much attention. In this study, we proposed an integrated framework of multi-modal electroencephalogram (EEG) and functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) from data collection to data analysis to explore the effects of music (especially personal preferred music) on brain activity. During the experiment, each subject was listening to two different kinds of music, namely personal preferred music and neutral music. In analyzing the synchronization signals of EEG and fNIRS, we found that music promotes the activity of the brain (especially the prefrontal lobe), and the activation induced by preferred music is stronger than that of neutral music. For the multi-modal features of EEG and fNIRS, we proposed an improved Normalized-ReliefF method to fuse and optimize them and found that it can effectively improve the accuracy of distinguishing between the brain activity evoked by preferred music and neutral music (up to 98.38%). Our work provides an objective reference based on neuroimaging for the research and application of personalized music therapy.

Accepting Immunotherapy After Multiline Treatment Failure: An Exploration of the Anxiety and Depression in Patients with Advanced Cancer Experience

BACKGROUND

Tumor immunotherapy is a promising therapeutic strategy for patients with advanced cancers, and some tumors have profound and durable tumor regression. However, immunotherapy is still in the clinical trial stage with elusive long-term effects and complications as a new strategy. It is unclear whether patients possess an accurate understanding of the clinical benefits associated with these agents.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the anxiety and depression of patients with advanced cancer who received immunotherapy using programmed death-1 or programmed death-ligand 1 after multiline treatment failure, explore the influencing factors, and provide a reference for clinical medical staff and psychological support for patients.

METHODS

The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale was used to calculate the anxiety and depression scores before and after 1, 2, and 3 courses of treatment, respectively. The patients with anxiety and depression were counted. Purposive sampling was used to conduct face-to-face semi-structured interviews with 21 patients to find out the reasons. The obtained data were analyzed and collated using Colaizzi's phenomenological method.

RESULTS

One hundred and twenty-six patients with advanced cancers were included in the study. Before and after 1, 2 and 3 courses of treatment, 18.26%, 23.0%, 50% and 54% of patients suffered from anxiety and depression, respectively. The proportion of patients with anxiety and depression during immunotherapy kept increasing, mainly due to therapeutic efficacy below expectation, lack of timely information after treatment, lack of awareness of treatment and drugs, and lack of family and social support.

CONCLUSION

Patients with advanced tumors after multiline treatment failure are susceptible to anxiety and depression during immunotherapy. It is necessary to test the emotional state of patients in time and carry out early intervention. Nursing staffs and medical staffs should adopt personalized measures to meet the psychological needs of patients.