Harmony in the Face of Fear: Music Therapy for Radiation Anxiety

From the archives: July 2025

A lot of things change when a cancer diagnosis comes your way. Various tests and treatment methods including radiation therapy prompt bouts of anxiety in cancer patients, especially when one is first dealing with their new reality. The authors and researchers of this study sought out to show how music therapy impacts stress and anxiety in those undergoing radiation simulation for the very first time. Simply put, radiation therapy simulation is the very first step of treatment. Simulation can indicate how a patient will handle and react to treatment for the remainder of said treatment. If the patient has a bad experience, their baseline for radiation will be a bad experience. The goal of this study is to use music therapy intervention to lower anxiety during this simulation period. 

Each patient was given a pre-simulation anxiety questionnaire. A music therapist performed an assessment to identify patient preferred music, and then set out to construct a special playlist based on preferences. Then, the music therapist structured the  patient’s music to go from music that was more energetic and active to music that was more relaxing. Each patient received music therapy provided by the music therapist featuring the previously structured patient-preferred music. The music therapist also provided opportunities for verbal processing during the intervention. After the intervention and simulation was complete, the patients were asked to fill out a post-simulation questionnaire. 

Results clearly showed that the music therapy intervention did significantly reduce anxiety in the cancer patients who were newly diagnosed and undergoing radiation therapy. The researchers point out that the best way to care for cancer patients is to focus on the whole patient, not just physical aspects, but psychosocial aspects as well. Cancer does not just fight a person physically. It also fights emotionally, mentally, etc. Music therapy is effective, and more research can support this study and its findings.

Josie McCutcheon, LPMT, MT-BC

Central Ohio Music Therapy, LLC

Rossetti, A., Chadha, M., Torres, B. N., Lee, J. K., Hylton, D., Loewy, J. V., & Harrison, L. B. (2017). The Impact of Music Therapy on Anxiety in Cancer Patients Undergoing Simulation for Radiation Therapy. International journal of radiation oncology, biology, physics, 99(1), 103–110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrobp.2017.05.003