THE EFFECTIVENESS OF BEETHOVEN’S “FUR ELISE’ AS CLASSICAL MUSIC THERAPY ON LOWERING STROKE CLIENTS’ BLOOD PRESSURE IN THE INPATIENT ROOMS OF DR. PIRNGADI REGIONAL GENERAL HOSPITAL, MEDAN, IN 2014

Abstract

Music therapy is a therapy that uses a systematic, controlled, and directed music to heal, rehabilitate, educate, and train children and adults who suffer from physical, mental or emotional ailments. A steady rhythmic music which gives a regular rhythm will give balance to a person’s heart beat and pulse that can lower his blood pressure. This study is a quasi-experimental design of one group pre-post test, which aims to find out the effectiveness of Beethoven classical music therapy on lowering stroke patients’ blood pressure at Dr. Pirngadi Regional General Hospital. The population was all stroke patients caused by hypertension and treated in Dr. Pirngadi Regional General Hospital, and 23 of them were used as the samples, taken by using purposive sampling technique. The data were gathered by using observation sheets, before and after music therapy intervention and analyzed by using pair t-test at the significance level of 95%. The results of the research showed that after classical music therapy intervention, systolic blood pressure had a significant reduction. The average content of systolic blood pressure before the intervention was 157,5 mmHg. 5 minutes after the intervention it was 154,7 mmHg , 10 minutes after the intervention it was 149,2 mmHg, and 15 minutes after the intervention it was 145, 8 mmHg at pvalue < 0.001. The average diastolic blood pressure before the intervention was 98,4 mmHg, 5 minutes after the intervention it was 94.3 mmHg, 10 minutes after the intervention it was 91.8 mmHg, and 90.5, and 15 minutes after the intervention it was 90.5 mm/Hg at p-value < 0.001. It is recommended that Beethoven Classical music should be needed for health care and a policy for the provision of complementary therapies should be set in the Inpatient Rooms, especially in the Stroke Unit.