John Hopkins Hospital - Bronchoscopy BEDSCAPES Pain Management Study

Randomized controlled study of 80 patients undergoing flexible bronchoscopy. Study was done as part of BRONCHQI, an ongoing study to measure and improve the quality of bronchoscopy. Principal Investigator, Gregory Diette, MD.

Rationale: Many patients report pain and anxiety even when they receive analgesics and sedatives. These medications can cause neurologic, hemodynamic and respiratory compromise. The researchers tested the efficacy of BEDSCAPES as non-pharmacological complementary therapy that could potentially reduce pain.

Findings: In multivariate analysis there was significantly less pain in the Bedscapes group after adjustment for age, gender, health status, education and fentanyl dose(p<0.02)


Conclusions: "The use of (BEDSCAPES) nature scenes and sounds during FB can reduce pain and should be considered as a complementary therapy for invasive procedures."

Abstract to be presented at the American Thoracic Society annual meeting in San Francisco. Journal article submitted for external peer review for publication in medical journal.

Beth Israel Medical Center, NYC - Cardiac Catheterization Study

Randomized controlled study of 80 patients awaiting the cardiac catheterization procedure. Principal investigators: Steven Horowitz, MD, Chief of Cardiology, The Heart Institute, Beth Israel Medical Center and Roger Ulrich PhD, Director, Center for Health Systems and Design, Texas A&M University, College of Architecture. Study soon to be submitted to peer review for publication. Results were presented by Dr. Ulrich at the December 2001 Symposium on Healthcare Design in Nashville in a presentation entitled, "Cardiology Environments that Heal."

Findings: As reported in the British journal The Lancet (Vol.353, Number 9162, 24 April, 1999), preliminary results from this study showed the most dramatic stress reducing benefits for patients who were exposed to both the nature sights and sounds of BEDSCAPES.