A Texas doctor provides healing to patients with vinyl music : NPR

AUSTIN, TEXAS — Lying in her bed at the University of Texas Dell Seton Medical Center in Austin, 64-year-old Pamela Mansfield sways her legs to the rhythm of George Jones' “She Thinks I Still Care.” Mansfield is still regaining most of her mobility from recent neck surgery, but she finds a way to move to the music blasting from the record player that was brought into her room.

“The worst part seems to be stiffness in the ankles and lack of feeling in the arms,” she says. “But music makes everything better.”

The player is provided by ATX-VINyL, a project conceived by Dr. Tyler Jorgensen to bring music to the bedside of patients facing difficult diagnoses and treatments. He works with a team of volunteers who cart the player into patients' rooms, along with a selection of records in their favorite genres.

“I think of this record player as a time machine,” he said. “You know, something starts playing – an old, familiar song on the record player – and now you’re home again, you’re out of the hospital, you’re with your family, you’re with your loved ones.”

The healing power of country music… and Thin Lizzy

Mansfield wanted to hear country music: Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, George Jones. The genre reminds her of listening to records with her parents, who helped shape her taste in music. Almost as soon as the first record starts spinning, she starts making jokes.

“I have excellent taste in music. On the other hand, men… uh. I think my selector is broken,” she says.

Other patients ask for jazz, R&B or holiday records.

The man who gave Jorgensen the idea for ATX-VINyL loved classic rock. It was about three years ago when Jorgensen, a longtime emergency physician, began a fellowship in palliative care, a specialty aimed at improving the quality of life for people with serious illnesses, including terminal illnesses.

Shortly after he began his fellowship, he said, he found it difficult to connect with a specific patient.

“I couldn’t get this man out and I felt like he was really struggling and suffering,” Jorgensen said.

He came up with the idea of ​​trying to play some music for the patient.

He went with “The boys are back in town“, by the 1970s Irish rock band Thin Lizzy, and saw an immediate change in the patient.

“He told me old stories from his life. He became more honest and vulnerable about the health issues he was facing,” Jorgensen said. “And it just struck me that for as long as I’ve been practicing medicine, there was such a powerful tool that was almost universal to the human experience, namely music, and I had never used it.”

Making New Memories

Jorgensen realized that recordings could lift the spirits of patients facing dire circumstances in hospital spaces that are often aesthetically empty. And he thought vinyl would provide a more personal experience than streaming a digital track through a smartphone or speaker.

“There’s something warm about the friction of a record—the popping, the scratching,” he said. “It kind of resonates through the wooden record player and it just feels different.”

Since then, he has amassed a collection of 60 recordings at the hospital. The most popular album by far was Fleetwood Mac. Hearings 1977. Willie is also popular along with Etta James and John Denver. And on the eve of the holidays, the Vince Guaraldi trio A Charlie Brown Christmas gets a lot of spins.

These days, it's common for volunteers to roll the record player from room to room after consulting with nursing staff about patients and family members who are struggling and might benefit from a visit.

Daniela Vargas, a medical student at the University of Texas at Austin who leads a group of volunteers, became interested in music therapy years ago when she and her sister began playing violin for isolated patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. She said she sees similar benefits when she curates a collection of records for a patient today.

“We're not typically in the room the whole time, so it's a more intimate experience for the patient or family, but being able to interact with the patient at the beginning and at the end can really make a difference,” Vargas said.

Often the palliative care patients seen by ATX-VINyL are nearing the end of their lives.

Jorgensen believes the record player helps ease the burden that patients and their families feel. Suddenly it was possible to create a new, positive shared experience during a very difficult time.

“Now you kind of look at it together and think, 'What are we going to do with this thing?' Let’s play something for mom, let’s play something for dad,” he said. “And you create a new, positive, shared experience in the midst of something that might otherwise be very sad and very difficult.”

Other patients, like Pamela Mansfield, are working hard to recover.

She has had six neck surgeries since April when she suffered a serious fall. But the day she listened to George Jones' album, she had a small victory to celebrate: She stood up for three minutes, a record since her last operation.

As the record spins, she can't help but think about the victories she's still striving for.

“It's motivating,” she said. “Me and my broom could do a great dance to this thing.”