\u201cI think of this record player as a time machine,\u201d he said. \u201cYou know, something starts spinning \u2014 an old, familiar song on a record player \u2014 and now you’re back at home, you’re out of the hospital, you’re with your family, you’re with your loved ones.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Lorianne Willett<\/p>\n
\/<\/p>\n
KUT News<\/p>\n
UT Austin sophomore Daniela Vargas pushes a cart with a record player on it through Dell Seton Medical Center. She is the lead volunteer for the ATX-VINyL program, which brings music to hospitalized palliative care patients.<\/p>\n
The healing power of Thin Lizzy<\/p>\n
Mansfield wanted to hear country music: George Jones, Willie Nelson, Patsy Cline. That genre reminds her of listening to records with her parents, who helped form her taste in music. Almost as soon as the first record spins, she starts cracking jokes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have great taste in music. Men, on the other hand \u2026 ehhh. I think my picker\u2019s broken,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Others patients ask for jazz, R&B or holiday records. The man who gave Jorgensen the idea for ATX VINyL loved classic rock. That was around three years ago, when Jorgensen, a long-time emergency medicine physician, began a fellowship in palliative care \u2014 a specialty aimed at improving quality of life for people with serious conditions, including terminal illnesses. Shortly after he began the fellowship, he struggled to connect with a particular patient.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were just all these walls and barriers. I couldn’t draw this man out, and I felt like he was really struggling and suffering,\u201d Jorgensen said.<\/p>\n
He had the idea to try playing the patient some music. He went with \u201cThe Boys Are Back in Town,\u201d by the 1970s rock group Thin Lizzy. Jorgensen saw an immediate change in the patient, who began to open up as the music played.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was telling me old stories about his life. He was getting more honest and vulnerable about the health challenges he was facing,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it just struck me that all this time I’ve been practicing medicine, there’s such a powerful tool that is almost universal to the human experience, which is music, and I’ve never tapped into it.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Lorianne Willett<\/p>\n
\/<\/p>\n
KUT News<\/p>\n
Dr. Tyler Jorgensen sets “A Charlie Brown Christmas” on a vinyl record player at Dell Seton Medical Center.<\/p>\n
Creating new memories<\/p>\n
Jorgensen realized records could lift the spirits of patients dealing with heavy circumstances in hospital spaces that are often aesthetically bare. And he thought vinyl would offer a more personal touch than streaming a digital track through a phone or speaker.<\/p>\n
“There’s just something inherently warm about the friction of a record \u2014 the pops, the scratches,\u201d he said. \u201cIt sort of resonates through the wooden record player, and it just feels different.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since then, he has built up a collection of 60 records and counting at the hospital. The most-requested album by a landslide is Fleetwood Mac\u2019s \u201cRumors.\u201d Willie is also popular, along with Etta James and John Denver. And around the holidays, the Vince Guaraldi Trio\u2019s \u201cA Charlie Brown Christmas\u201d gets a lot of spins.<\/p>\n
These days, it\u2019s often a volunteer who rolls the record player from room to room after consulting nursing staff about patients and family members who are struggling and could use a visit. Daniela Vargas, the UT Austin undergraduate who heads up the volunteer cohort, became passionate about music therapy years ago, when she and her sister began playing violin for isolated patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. She said she sees similar benefits when she curates a collection of records for a patient today.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are usually not in the room for the entire time, so it’s a more intimate experience for the patient or family, but being able to interact with the patient in the beginning and at the end can be really transformative,\u201d Vargas said.<\/p>\n
Often, the palliative care patients visited by ATX-VINyL are near the end of life. Jorgensen feels that the record player provides a physical interruption for the heaviness those patients and their families are experiencing. Suddenly, it\u2019s possible to create a new, positive shared experience at a profoundly difficult time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe like to think that’s a big part of it, that you’re creating a memory,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2018Hey, remember that time we got to play this for Dad? He loved that so much.\u2019 And I think it gives agency to patients, to families, to loved ones, to actually do something in this difficult situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other patients, like Pamela Mansfield, are working painstakingly toward recovery. She has had six neck surgeries since this spring and has experienced her share of setbacks. But on the day she listened to the George Jones album, she had a small victory to celebrate: She stood up for three minutes, a record since her most recent surgery.<\/p>\n
With the record spinning, she couldn\u2019t help but think about the victories ahead.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s motivating,\u201d she said. \u201cMe and my broom could dance really well to some of this stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lying in her bed at Dell Seton Medical Center, 64-year-old Pamela Mansfield sways her feet to the rhythm…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[39295,42521,132,134,133,42522,13471,42523,42524],"class_list":{"0":"post-90130","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-ascension","9":"tag-atx-vinyl","10":"tag-austin","11":"tag-austin-headlines","12":"tag-austin-news","13":"tag-dell-seton","14":"tag-music-therapy","15":"tag-tyler-jorgenson","16":"tag-vinyl"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}