Medical Student Joins Hackensack University Medical Center Faculty in Remote Exposure to Music AGS Poster Presentation

AGS invites med student Andrew Huang to present HELP intervention poster at the Lightning Science: Brief Presentations of Top-Rated Abstracts Session

Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine student Andrew Huang’s abstract Integration of Virtual Music Performance into the HELP Toolbox, featuring the HELP program at Hackensack University Medical Center, was accepted for the 2023 Presidential American Geriatric Society conference poster presentation. AGS also invited Huang to present at the Lightning Science: Brief Presentations of Top-Rated Abstracts Session.

The project demonstrated that remote music performance is feasible to incorporate into the existing Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP) interventions, an established model to reduce delirium incidence, and is associated with a trend of pain reduction.

The HELP program at Hackensack University Medical Center integrated a virtual music program. This poster research project documented and evaluated the integration of virtual music into the HELP program.

The poster communicated how HELP coordinator and in-hospital volunteers identify patients interested in music. In-hospital volunteers then start a video call for a remote music session at a scheduled time on the iPad. The music volunteer can talk with and perform for the patient for approximately 10 minutes. When the performance concludes, the in-hospital volunteer wheels the iPad setup to the next interested patient.

The project noted a trend of pain reduction in the music group and no differences in PRN pain meds or CAM. It also calls for further study with a larger sample size. Huang coordinated with Hackensack University Medical Center faculty Nadine Benoit, MPA, Manisha Parulekar, M.D., and Anjali Gupta, M.D., on the poster project.

Learn more about innovative geriatric care at Hackensack University Medical Center.