From the Washington Post December 23, 2008: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/19/AR2008121903041.html
“Hitting the Right Notes To Aid the Ill”
Loeb, who has practiced at Howard County General Hospital, stresses that the “live human touch” is essential and can’t be matched by a CD or tape. “It’s important for us to be able to watch the patient and react musically. We look at how they’re breathing, at their facial muscles to see how relaxed they are, to know if we have to change the key, the rhythm, the melody.”
She believes the music has an immediate impact: “You can see on the cardiac monitor the oxygen level creep its way up to 100 percent,” she says, “because the music is relaxing them so that when they’re breathing they’re oxygenating their tissues better.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/19/AR2008121903041.html