NORMAL - Sonya Ash walked into the room, carrying a music stand, a book of oboe solos and her oboe.

"Would you like to hear some music?" she asked.

Her new audience nodded. Ash set up the music stand, opened her book and played "something I'm working on for school right now" - Romance No. 2 and Romance No. 3 by Robert Schumann.

Bob Brandt, 84, of Bloomington, said nothing but smiled from time to time as he listened to the music while undergoing dialysis in a hospital bed at BroMenn Regional Medical Center.

When Ash finished playing, the two people on either side of Brandt's hospital bed applauded. Brandt smiled again.

"That was lovely," said his wife, Barbara Brandt.

"What a nice difference," said Rhonda Young, a registered nurse with Fresenius Medical Care, a dialysis company.

"I think this is a marvelous idea," Barbara Brandt said. "A patient in the hospital has little to look forward to. Music is a wonderful addition. It beats TV.

"This has been a really bright spot in an otherwise dreary day," she admitted. "Music can be very therapeutic."

"This" is a new program at BroMenn in which musicians become trained volunteers to play for willing patients and their family members in some patient rooms and lounges.

Ash, 20, of Hudson, came up with the idea and is among three volunteer musicians in the program, which began in October.

The program is called Music for the Heart. Ash is careful to say it's not music therapy because none of the three volunteers are certified music therapists.

"The hospital isn't the best place to be," said musician-volunteer Amy Wilson, 19, of New Lenox. "I hope patients and family members can have a little light in their day."

Sue Seibring, BroMenn's director of volunteer services, has no data yet regarding results of the fledgling program. But the volunteers have anecdotes that speak to the value of Music for the Heart.

"It's soothing," Seibring said of the music. "The volunteers feel it's serving a big need."

Nurses know music can calm people and help regulate their breathing, said Ash, a junior pre-medicine and music performance student at Illinois State University. She also works as a second shift monitor technician at BroMenn, meaning she monitors vital signs and heart rhythms for patients in the step-down unit from intensive care.

Nurses have told Ash that her music has helped calm nervous and upset patients, making them easier to deal with and heal.

"In hospitals, everyone has their own thing going on," said Wilson, a sophomore music student at Illinois State University. "There's a need for something like this."

Music for the Heart was conceived when Ash was working one night a few months ago in her unit, 1 South, a step-down unit from intensive care. A family member of a dying patient asked Ash whether any music was available on the unit that could be played for the patient, a music lover, as the patient neared death.

All she could find was a CD player with a Britney Spears CD, which Ash figured wasn't appropriate.

The patient died without music and with Ash wishing she had had her oboe to play for the patient.

"It was very upsetting (to me) that they asked for something we didn't have," Ash said.

She approached Seibring in September about starting a program in which musician-volunteers would play for patients and family members.

Seibring was intrigued. BroMenn already had music therapy in its inpatient mental health unit and offers music in its atrium in December. The idea of music for medical-surgical patients and family members had arisen before but never came to fruition.

"From her experience as an employee, she knew there was a need," Seibring said of Ash.

She also appreciated that Ash is a music and pre-medicine student who understands the value of music. Seibring decided to start the Music for the Heart program in 1 South patient rooms and in two family member lounges and may expand it to other units of the hospital.

Musician-volunteers first must go through volunteer orientation. Seibring is interested in attracting music students from Illinois State and Illinois Wesleyan univerities, rather than performers. She believes music students understand that the volunteer's role is to comfort, not to entertain.

"And they need to understand that they may be walking into a tough situation," Seibring said.

Ash talked with some music students at ISU and Wilson, who plays classical guitar, signed on. The third volunteer is Dolores Smith, a local resident who plays the electric autoharp.

Wilson experienced a value of music a few years ago when she was teaching guitar to one child who had trouble with motor skills and another child with autism. The children benefited from the lessons and Wilson enjoyed teaching them.

Wilson joined the new BroMenn program and is journaling her experience, making it a part of her ISU music honors project.

Wilson has played mostly for family members in the critical care lounge and in the cardiovascular unit lounge. Ash plays mostly in patient rooms in 1 South, but also has played in rooms in the mother-baby unit.

Ash checks in at the nurses' station and asks which patients would appreciate music. She goes to each recommended patient but asks first before playing.

For example, after playing for the Brandts on Nov. 21, Ash went into the room of Ann Kraft, 73, of Normal. Kraft and her husband, David, quickly agreed to Ash playing for them.

Ann Kraft is a retired nurse from OSF St. Joseph Medical Center and also plays organ.

Ash played "Chant Sans Paroles" by Peter Tchaikovsky and "Sonata No. 1" by George Friedrich Handel.

Kraft smiled the entire time and applauded when Ash was done.

"Very nice. Thank you for sharing. Music is healing, I think," Kraft told Ash.

Ash smiled when she walked out of the room.

"It's very rewarding. It's nice to see the smiling faces of people who wouldn't have been smiling otherwise."

Ash generally plays soothing, classical music by Schumann, Brahms or Shubert. Sometimes, she'll get requests for patriotic music, hymns or music from musicals.

"I think the patients and family members get ease and comfort from this," Ash said. "It's not always the doctor coming in, reading the charts and giving some bad news."

Ash recalls a stroke patient who remembered a couple of things after Ash played for her. Another patient lifted herself up in her hospital bed and swayed to the music.

A couple of patients have said "no" to Ash, who wished them a good day and left the room.

Wilson plays a lot of classical music, like Bach. She generally plays in the lounges but checks the mood before she begins.

Once, a couple of family members were angry with a staff member and she delayed playing until the atmosphere calmed. If the mood is sad, she plays quiet music, such as an etude by Leo Brouwer. If the mood is happy, she may play something livelier by the Beatles.

One patient liked the blues but Wilson didn't know any blues to play, so she played some Jimi Hendrix. And the patient sang along.

"We were kind of jamming,'" she said. "He asked me if I was coming the next week.

"Music helps you make an emotional connection. It makes me feel good that we can impact peoples' lives, where their mood is elevated in a tough situation," Wilson said.

"I love leaving there feeling happy. I always leave there feeling happy."

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Company sought for new program at St. Joseph

By Paul Swiech

pswiech@pantagraph.com

BLOOMINGTON - A new bedside volunteer program at OSF St. Joseph Medical Center wants to reduce the risk of patients falling by giving the patients company.

Patient Companion will involve trained volunteers spending time with patients in the hospital's family care center, meaning surgical and pediatric patients, said Jennifer Sedbrook, the hospital's director of volunteer services.

If the program is successful, it may be expanded to other parts of the hospital.

The program calls for trained volunteers to sit with patients who want company. Some of the patients may not have family nearby. Or, family members may need to get out of the hospital for awhile to take care of other business.

Patient companions will talk with patients, may read to them, play a board game, play cards, watch television or eat a meal with them.

"It's been proven to be helpful in other places," including OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Sedbrook said.

The immediate value of the program is reducing the risk of falls. The program began as a safety initiative, Sedbrook said.

Some patients fall when they try to walk to the bathroom without waiting for assistance, when they forget about their IV, or when they forget they're in the hospital, Sedbrook said. A bedside volunteer may remind the patient and encourage him or her to wait until a nurse or nurses' aide comes to assist them, she said.

The program should allow patients to be safer while forming a connection with someone who may make their hospital stay more enjoyable, Sedbrook said. The program also means relief for patient family members and for hospital staff worried about certain patients falling.

The program also may be valuable to volunteers who want to form a deeper connection with patients, Sedbrook said.

"This is not for all volunteers," she said. "It's not for someone who wants to deliver flowers and mail but doesn't want to get any closer. But for volunteers who wish they could sit with patients, who want that deeper connection, this is for them."

Ten volunteers were trained at St. Joseph's first Patient Companion training session in November. Sedbrook hopes to train 10 more volunteers before starting the program in January.

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How to help

• To get more information about BroMenn's Music for the Heart program, call Sue Seibring at (309) 268-5397 or e-mail sseibring@bromenn.org.

• To get more information about St. Joseph's patient companion program, call Jennifer Sedbrook at (309) 665-4768.