Hospital Noise Frustrates Patients
Anyone who has stayed in a hospital knows how irritating excessive noise is. Whirring machines, visiting nurses throughout the night, beeping alarms, shared rooms, etc. We all understand how necessary some of it is, but even hospital staff will admit that many of the alarms aren’t actually linked to emergency situations. I have been in a hospital twice in the last 7 months. The first time was delivering my third baby and the second time was taking her back to the children’s hospital with RSV. Delivering my darling baby girl was incredibly difficult, but so much more rewarding than returning her ill. Regardless, both times I was bothered by all the noise, especially the beeping alarms on machines hooked up to my 6 week old….especially when they didn’t really mean anything. They woke me up every time, heart racing, afraid I was somehow losing my baby. Most of the time the beeps were false alarms. Next to unnecessary alarms and beeps on my bothersome noise list was noisy staff. Both times, I was exhausted, and all I wanted was to sleep. That was never going to happen.
I may be a bit of a complainer, but apparently I am not the only one. Recently, ABC News posted a great article about the noise problems hospitals have on patients. While patients have been complaining about noise for a long time, hospital administrators are just realizing what negative effects ambient sound has on them. Researchers from Harvard studied 12 healthy adults and how all the sounds around patient rooms affected them- this includes machinery, alarms, voices, etc. It’s fairly obvious to presume that excessive noise disrupts sleep, but what is not so plain to see is how affected sleep, in turn, affects patient’s overall health and well-being, and eventually the hospital’s bottom line.
Here are the details:
- They studied 12 healthy adults with prerecorded actual hospital sounds.
- Machinery noises, especially alarms, bothered patients more than voices.
- When the patients’ sleep was disturbed, their heart rates increased {even if they did not wake up}.
- As seen in previous studies, these disruptions are linked to high blood pressure, higher rates of heart disease, impaired immune function, increased memory problems, and depression.
- As a result, sedatives may need to be used more frequently, thus adding time to patients’ stays, which costs the hospitals.
That Noise Costs Hospitals
Portable sound machines can cover sleep-disrupting noise.
No one enjoys disrupted sleep, but when it affects overall patients’ health and the hospital’s budget at the same time, it’s time to deal with the problem. The articles goes on to say how one hospital specifically designed their building to include sound masking, among other acoustic treatments. Sound masking is the use of low-level background white noise to reduce the effects of ambient sound, whether voices or machinery. Sound masking can be especially helpful for patients who just want to rest and not feel held captive to every ringing alarm {particularly since most alarms aren’t as serious as they sound}. Better rested patients recover more quickly and cost hospitals less- it’s a win-win for everyone.
However, we can’t make hospitals implement sound masking, but we can bring our own {which I wish I had done!}. Portable sound machines are clutch in situations like these. Sometimes it can help new mamas like me get the rest we desperately need, especially in difficult times.
