Jammin' at Dewitt's Department of Mental Health

"Get your kicks on Route 66!" belts out Nat King Cole over the speakers as the day begins.

The day is Friday, and the waiting room has just begun to receive patients. The staff prepares for the day of rewarding, but sometimes intense and draining work of helping Soldiers and their family members deal with mental health issues. Problems seen on a daily basis include depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, traumatic brain injury, domestic violence and abuse.

"Aruba, Jamaica, Oooh I wanna take ya...everybody knows a little place like Kokomo...that's where you wanna go to get away from it all," croon the Beach Boys.
No, the site is not the 9:30 Club or a bar lounge, it is Dewitt Army Community Hospital's Behavioral Health Clinic.

While many evidence-based practice ideas shown to promote health and healing are being designed into the new hospital, scheduled to be complete in 2010, the behavioral health staff is getting a jump-start by using music to achieve the same end now.

Scientists have been studying the relationship between music and mood for a long time. An article in the New England Journal of Nursing showed that music reduced pain 20 percent and depression 25 percent. According to Don Campbell, author of The Mozart Effect, one reason may be that music causes the body to release its natural opiates - endorphins. Endorphins are shown to eliminate pain and cause a natural high.

Other studies have shown music affects areas of the brain involved in cognitive functioning, processing emotion, memory, calmness, and mood.

A study by Finnish researchers Suvi Saarikallio and Jaakko Erkkila showed that chronically depressed adolescents who listened to rock music for 25 minutes improved their mood and actually demonstrated changes in their brains' biology. Listening to music moved brain activation from the right to the left side. In other words, music could actually create
changes in the brain that reflect a shifting of mood from negative to positive. They also found that music could increase the understanding of feelings.

The idea to play music at DeWitt's clinic began when someone made the comment during departmental training that a highlight of his recent deployment to Iraq was going to the supply section each Friday, where, at 3 p.m., the Soldiers played the song "Kung Fu Fighting."

He said the song became symbolic of the end of the workweek for the staff and created a positive and fun atmosphere as people jammed and danced to the lyrics.

With that in mind, staff members and patients were asked to contribute their favorite uplifting tunes for a list that would be played every Friday in the waiting areas. The playlist is ever-changing and includes all genres, such as jazz, pop, rock, reggae, classical, and world music. The only restriction - no songs with explicit lyrics are allowed.

There are even a few songs for children who come in, so it's not unusual to hear the Chipmunks rock the afternoon waiting rooms with their versions of "Funky Town" and "You Had a Bad Day."

So far, a conga line hasn't formed in the waiting room to Gloria Estefan's "Conga", but there's always next Friday.