There's an unexpected method of healing taking place in the patient rooms, surgery wings, and even waiting rooms of Inova Loudoun Hospital. And the force behind it may surprise some. It's music.

Inova Loudoun launched its Medical Music Therapy program in 2014, thanks to generous support from Teresa Wheeler and Cindy Chambers. It's free to patients, which is made possible entirely through the generosity of community supporters of the Inova Loudoun Hospital Foundation, including Maggie Bryant, The Ladies Board of Inova Loudoun Hospital and grateful patient families.

When the music therapists first started working with patients, Inova's Director of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Cathy Christopher thought she'd have to convince her colleagues and some patients to give it a try. But the therapists—and the guitars, percussion instruments and songbooks they bring with them—have been welcomed with open arms. "I never expected it would get this kind of a reception," Christopher said. "It is the most amazing service I have ever seen."

To provide the program, Inova Loudoun contracts with Middleburg-based music therapy nonprofit organization A Place to Be. Music therapists Raymond Leone, Kevin Leong, Valerie Jackson and Tom Sweitzer are now familiar faces in the hospital's halls. They also work with patients at the Inova Loudoun Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Leesburg and Loudoun Ambulatory Medical and Psychiatric Services.

Sweitzer, executive director of A Place to Be, said there's no one type of patient that music therapy can't help. It can help anyone. "That's the beauty of music therapy. We have so many possibilities," he said, adding that music therapists are working with patients and families in almost every department. Music is calming patients who are anxious about undergoing a procedure, revving them up and helping them focus during physical therapy, distracting them from pain, cheering them up when they're depressed, coaxing them to sleep, and even comforting families who are losing their loved ones.

"We're not just playing music to make patients happy," said Leone, who also serves as director of Medical Music Therapy at A Place to Be. "We choose our music carefully—using it as a clinical tool to help meet a patient's individual physiological or psychological needs."

"Music therapy has become so integrated into our care, it's almost expected now," Christopher said. "It really is changing lives."

There are so many stories of how music is improving lives right here in Loudoun County, Sweitzer said, but there's one story of a husband and wife that especially illustrates the power of music in the medical field. A few years ago, Leone worked with a woman in Inova's ICU who was battling cancer. He helped her manage her pain at the end of her life, and went on to play the same songs he played at her bedside at her memorial service. Her husband, in his 40s, later had a stroke.

"Because he'd seen the power of music therapy, he sought it out to help him in his recovery," Sweitzer said. Now, the man is an active member of Inova's stroke choir—a 25-member choir of stroke survivors and another example of music therapy at work. "He is a true example of how Inova's willingness to bring in music therapy has helped not only individuals but entire families."

An Inova-led 2018 research study on the impact of music therapy on the intensive care unit patients has helped illustrate, beyond the anecdotal evidence, that music therapy can heal. The study revealed that music therapy helps soothe anxiety, stress and agitation, as well as have positive effects on patients' blood pressure, heart rate, muscle tension and respiration, and, in some cases, help with pain management. The report was recently published in the American Journal of Critical Care.

"We're pointing to this study—and there's a second study underway now—to show that there is research that demonstrates this is an evidence-based treatment that can be used in a medical setting," Christopher said.

Inova's medical music therapy program is blazing a trail for the medical industry nationwide, she said. Other hospitals and medical providers are looking at Inova's success and considering following suit.

Christopher's hope is to raise additional funds to sustain this critical program and potentially expand its reach. She'd like to see music therapists regularly work in Inova's Birthing Inn to soothe newborn babies and mothers. Sweitzer also would love more people to experience the power of music therapy. He hopes to one day see more medical providers prescribe music therapy as a pain management alternative to highly addictive pain killers like opioids.

"Wouldn't it be great if someone in pain could learn how to use music—and breathing with the music—to relax and fall asleep instead of relying on an opioid?" he said. "There's so much potential there. And the beauty of music is that patients can take it home with them."