Soothing sounds of a harp are now helping to ease the pain of some seriously ill and palliative patients at Murdoch’s St John of God Hospice.
Certified clinical musician Chloe Beaumont has been battling resistance from some medical quarters but is now volunteering one day a week at the hospice.
Chloe recently returned to Perth after years working overseas in hospitals and hospices. She brought her harp, which is smaller than a traditional harp so she can easily move with it around the hospital.
She says it’s taken her a year to get a foot in the door at the hospice because people in WA don’t understand the therapy and the way sound resonates through the body.
“I play the harp at the bedside to lower anxiety, rapid breathing and bring the patient to a place of peace,” Chloe says.
She first learned about the therapy when she saw the pioneer of therapeutic harp in Australia, Peter Roberts.
Some of Chloe’s motivation to take up the therapy came from the death of her husband 30 years ago.
“He had kidney dialysis which culminated in a kidney transplant. Sadly the transplant failed and with no immune system to fight disease, he succumbed to a brain tumour.
“At the Perth hospital at that time there were no holistic therapies provided to support his wellbeing and help him endure the pain. But here being presented to me was a way forward, a new path to explore. I just knew without a doubt, I could do this and alleviate the pain felt by others, if not for him.
“When I saw Peter Roberts doing this at the bedside, providing a harp vigil to help people pass or to just put them to sleep, I thought I could do that because I’ve had musical training, and I could learn harp.”
Chloe spent the next two years in Buenos Aires studying the harp with Oscar do Campo the teacher at the Conservatorium of Music and then took an accredited harp certification course to become a Clinical Musician.
The course taught her to play with feeling and to connect heart to heart with her patient; how to adjust the music to the patient’s needs and find which key or mode would soothe their anxiety and help them to sleep.
The course included more than 100 hours of voluntary harp work at the bedside and 10 workshops to learn about palliative care in a hospice.
“At this time, I was living in Wellington, New Zealand and began to seek employment in various nursing homes.
“Over the last five years, before returning to WA I have been playing my harp at the bedside of five hospitals, whether for a highly anxious patient with Alzheimer’s disease, a patient in palliative care or providing a harp vigil for the family with a loved one making their final journey.”
Chloe says it has been difficult to get medics to accept the therapy.
“Medics often find, if they haven’t played a musical instrument, they just don’t want to tune in to this idea, but there is more and more information coming out about sound therapy, thank goodness.
“St John of God, the hospice, is a very good start and they can probably give me some sort of recommendation, but doctors don’t know this work.
“I can put people to sleep, I can lower their rapid breathing with entrainment. I start at the same slow pace as their breathing and I slowly bring them down so that they go to sleep. It’s the same with someone who is fearful and at the end of their life journey.
“It’s a matter of finding the right key because each of us are different.”
Chloe says finding that key is trial and error.
“I assess the situation they’re in by looking at everything that’s in the room, the patient, if they’re breathing very rapidly or whether they’re groaning or twitching. You have to read all these things.
“For people who are dying, I have medieval music which has long pauses in the music and is arhythmic so in their minds they can’t latch on to anything. It’s like a musical phrase, like a wave coming into the shore and then it peters out in the sand and there’s silence and then another pause. It’s music from the monasteries in Europe.
“I went to Cluny in southern France and I’m sure that the monks there played for their brothers when they were passing or very ill.”
Chloe says her approach to patients is not always well received.
“Mainly, when I go into a room and the person is awake, I usually ask them, how would you like some soothing, comforting music?”
She says that most people are accepting – often simply because it is nice, soothing music rather than something spiritual.
“Once on the radio I heard a man say: ‘don’t you dare bring a harpist near me,’ because they’re thinking of angels.
“I’ve also been in a room and I’ve been trying to help a man, and he said, ‘you’re too loud’, so I moved back a bit, ‘too loud’ he said, and in the end, I realised he just didn’t want me there at all.”
Chloe says the process can be very helpful for families to come together because a loved one is dying.
“The tension in the room when I come in is palpable, so I start very slowly, and it’s very meditative music. It’s very slow, and I can help them let go of all that anxiety.
“And by the end, I usually play for about an hour. Everyone in the room is at peace and love is a dominant energy in the room.
“It’s finding the right key to relax the person and help them just let go, unbind from life.”
She is grateful for the acceptance of her work at the hospice and for the help they give her with people who are either upset or anxious.
“The response has been so positive.”
Chloe can be reached by email at harpandsoul17@gmail.com or phone 0491 179 725.
