TREATMENT BY NOISE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 October 1941, Page 7

TREATMENT BY NOISE

WAR’S INTERESTING MEDICAL DISCOVERY. IMMEDIATE RESPONSE MADE' BY PATIENTS. Here is one of the most interesting medical discoveries made during the war. It concerns an entirely new treatment for “noise shock.”

For most sick persons quiet is an essential part of their treatment, but there are at least some patients for whose recovery noise is necessary.

Two mental experts, working in a military hospital, have been studying the treatment of mental disturbance due to gun-fire, shell-bursts, exploding bombs, sirens and dive-bombing planes. Treatment on orthodox lines, by rest, by physical training, games and occupational therapy did a good deal, but not enough. Their patients were still over-sensitive to such noises as a,slamming door, or a noisy automobile exhaust. They started violently at any unusual noise. In fact, hospital was too quiet a place in which to restore to normal the victims of excessive noise.

The doctors then borrowed from the 8.8. C. their gramophone records of war noises, of anti-aircraft and machine guns. The sound of planes and sirens, explosions, and so on. The patients were told in simple terms what was to be done. They were reminded that human beings can get used to any noise if they have enough of it. Those who live by a railway know this. And so they were subjected to the very same noises which had caused their breakdown. Their reactions were immediate. They were those' of excitement—even terror, or re-living the emotional experiences which had terrified them. They trembled, they sweated—all the signs of great anxiety. The noise brought back their anxieties, but they faced them and they conquered them. These men regained their self-control and their confidence.