A Texas physician gives therapeutic to sufferers with vinyl music : NPR

[ad_1] <img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6000x4000+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F1f%2Fc0%2F40dba69a46d6b4d95119bbf49a52%2F20251209-atxvinyl-25-1.JPG" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6000x4000+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F1f%2Fc0%2F40dba69a46d6b4d95119bbf49a52%2F20251209-atxvinyl-25-1.JPG" class="img" alt="Dr. Tyler Jorgensen, a palliative care doctor at Dell Seton Medical Center, beings to play a Charlie Brown Christmas album in an office on December 9, 2025. Ferguson said this album is popular due to the lack of lyrics, which makes for easier listening." fetchpriority="high"/> Dr. Tyler Jorgensen, a palliative care physician at Dell Seton Medical Middle, performs a Charlie Brown Christmas album in an workplace on December 9, 2025. Ferguson mentioned this album is in style because of the lack of lyrics, which makes for simpler listening. Lorianne Willett/KUT Information cover caption

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Lorianne Willett/KUT Information AUSTIN, TEXAS — Mendacity in her mattress at Dell Seton Medical Middle on the College of Texas at Austin, 64-year-old Pamela Mansfield sways her toes to the rhythm of George Jones' "She Thinks I Nonetheless Care." Mansfield continues to be recovering a lot of her mobility after a latest neck surgical procedure, however she finds a approach to transfer to the music floating from a document participant that was wheeled into her room.

"Appears to be the worst half is the stiffness in my ankles and the no feeling within the palms," she says. "However music makes every part higher."

The document participant is courtesy of the ATX-VINyL program, a venture dreamed up by Dr. Tyler Jorgensen to carry music to the bedside of sufferers coping with tough diagnoses and coverings. He collaborates with a group of volunteers who wheel the participant on a cart to sufferers' rooms, together with a collection of data of their favourite genres.

"I consider this document participant as a time machine," he mentioned. "You already know, one thing begins spinning — an previous, acquainted tune on a document participant — and now you are again at dwelling, you are out of the hospital, you are with your loved ones, you are together with your family members."

<img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6000x4000+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Faf%2F43%2Fc31c987246d487c9932f7eba6b0d%2F20251209-atxvinyl-39-1.JPG" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6000x4000+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Faf%2F43%2Fc31c987246d487c9932f7eba6b0d%2F20251209-atxvinyl-39-1.JPG" class="img" alt="UT Public Health Sophomore Daniela Vargas pushes a cart through Dell Seton Medical Center on December 9, 2025. The ATX VINyL program is designed to bring volunteers in to play music for patients in the hospital, and Vargas participates as the head volunteer. Lorianne Willett/KUT News" loading="lazy"/> UT Public Well being Sophomore Daniela Vargas pushes a cart by means of Dell Seton Medical Middle on December 9, 2025. The ATX VINyL program is designed to carry volunteers in to play music for sufferers within the hospital, and Vargas participates as the top volunteer. Lorianne Willett/KUT Information cover caption

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Lorianne Willett/KUT Information The therapeutic energy of Nation music... and Skinny Lizzy Mansfield needed to listen to nation music: Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, George Jones. That style reminds her of listening to data along with her mother and father, who helped type her style in music. Virtually as quickly as the primary document spins, she begins cracking jokes.

"I've nice style in music. Males, however … ehhh. I feel my picker's damaged," she says.

Different sufferers ask for jazz, R&B or vacation data.

The person who gave Jorgensen the concept for ATX-VINyL liked basic rock. That was round three years in the past, when Jorgensen, a long-time emergency drugs doctor, started a fellowship in palliative care — a specialty aimed toward enhancing high quality of life for folks with severe situations, together with terminal diseases.

Shortly after he started the fellowship, he says he struggled to attach with a selected affected person.

"I could not draw this man out, and I felt like he was actually struggling and struggling," Jorgensen mentioned.

He had the concept to attempt enjoying the affected person some music.

He went with "The Boys Are Again in City," by the Seventies Irish rock group Skinny Lizzy, and noticed a direct change within the affected person.

"He was telling me previous tales about his life. He was getting extra sincere and weak in regards to the well being challenges he was dealing with," Jorgensen mentioned. "And it simply struck me that each one this time I have been training drugs, there's such a robust software that's virtually common to the human expertise, which is music, and I've by no means tapped into it."

<img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6000x4000+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F55%2F0f%2Ff54079104b7584ed38eac841414d%2F20251209-atxvinyl-16-1.JPG" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6000x4000+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F55%2F0f%2Ff54079104b7584ed38eac841414d%2F20251209-atxvinyl-16-1.JPG" class="img" alt="Dr. Tyler Jorgensen, a palliative care doctor at Dell Seton Medical Center, holds a Willie Nelson album in an office on December 9, 2025. Ferguson said patients have been increasingly requesting country music and they had to source that genre specifically." loading="lazy"/> Dr. Tyler Jorgensen, a palliative care physician at Dell Seton Medical Middle, holds a Willie Nelson album in an workplace on December 9, 2025. Ferguson mentioned sufferers have been more and more requesting nation music they usually needed to supply that style particularly. Lorianne Willett/KUT Information cover caption

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Lorianne Willett/KUT Information Creating new recollections Jorgensen realized data may carry the spirits of sufferers coping with heavy circumstances in hospital areas which are typically aesthetically naked. And he thought vinyl would provide a extra private contact than streaming a digital monitor by means of a smartphone or speaker.

"There's simply one thing inherently heat in regards to the friction of a document — the pops, the scratches," he mentioned. "It type of resonates by means of the wood document participant, and it simply feels totally different."

Since then, he has constructed up a set of 60 data and counting on the hospital. Essentially the most-requested album, by a landslide, is Fleetwood Mac's Rumours from 1977. Willie can also be in style, together with Etta James and John Denver. And across the holidays, the Vince Guaraldi Trio's A Charlie Brown Christmas will get plenty of spins.

As of late, it is typically a volunteer who rolls the document participant from room to room after consulting nursing workers about sufferers and members of the family who're struggling and will use a go to.

Daniela Vargas, the UT Austin pre-med undergraduate who heads up the volunteer cohort, turned obsessed with music remedy years in the past when she and her sister started enjoying violin for remoted sufferers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. She mentioned she sees comparable advantages when she curates a set of data for a affected person at the moment.

"We're normally not within the room for your entire time, so it is a extra intimate expertise for the affected person or household, however with the ability to work together with the affected person at first and on the finish will be actually transformative," Vargas mentioned.

Usually, the palliative care sufferers visited by ATX-VINyL are close to the top of life.

Jorgensen feels that the document participant gives an interruption of the heaviness these sufferers and their households are experiencing. Instantly, it is attainable to create a brand new, constructive shared expertise at a profoundly tough time.

"Now you are type of it collectively and pondering, 'What are we going to do with this factor? Let's play one thing for Mother, let's play one thing for Dad.'" he mentioned. "And you're creating a brand new, constructive, shared expertise within the setting of one thing that may in any other case be very unhappy, very heavy."

Different sufferers, like Pamela Mansfield, are working painstakingly towards restoration.

She has had six neck surgical procedures since April, when she had a severe fall. However on the day she listened to the George Jones album, she had a small victory to rejoice: She stood up for 3 minutes, a document since her most up-to-date surgical procedure.