2024 Funded Micro Grant
Sound Reduction to Alleviate Stress for Patients in Electroconvulsive Therapy
Team: Devin Lowe, Padmini Paul, Sarah Frank, Jeff Price, Melinda Walker, Savannah Wallace, Stuart Hendin, Bobby Bethea, Jasmin Crawley, Katherine Czja, Mikal Crosby, Doug Blazejewski, Mandi Sommers, Zoey Aarons
Department of Psychiatry
Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) is a procedure that sends a brief electrical stimulation to the brain to alleviate symptoms of specific mental health disorders, namely major depressive disorder. In an open bay on the 7th floor of the Meyer building, patients of all ages, both inpatient and outpatient, prepare for and recover from ECT. Patients can sometimes be loud pre and post ECT, making sounds in recovery from general anesthesia or agitated following the treatment. The sounds could be stressful to other patients who are awaiting treatment or recovering from their treatment.
The ECT clinic leads are committed to making a quieter, calmer space to reduce this stress. With funding from IHM, they will install noise cancelling sound machines in the patient’s bays to provide privacy, provide ambient sound playing soft, relaxing music, and offer 6 pairs of reusable noise cancelling headphones to be offered to individual patients.