By Dori O'Neal, Herald staff writer

RICHLAND -- Vicki Miller has trouble sleeping between chemotherapy treatments. But when music therapist Bill Dluhosh drops by her room at Kadlec Regional Medical Center a few times a week, he can quickly lull her to a peaceful sleep with the healing power of his music.

"Sometimes I'll be so tired but can't sleep," she said. "Bill's music is so calming it soothes me right to sleep. I always look forward to his visits."

Dluhosh (pronounced da-loo-hawsh) has been the full-time staff music therapist at the Richland hospital since October. He earned a degree in music therapy from Marylhurst University in Portland.

More hospitals are hiring music therapists because of music's effectiveness in promoting faster recovery after surgery and helping in pain management, childbirth and treatment for cancer and other conditions, Dluhosh said.

Kennewick General Hospital and Lourdes Medical Center also provide music therapy for patients, though Kadlec is the only hospital that employs one full time.

"Music can be a distraction from pain and helps reduce a patient's anxiety about being in the hospital," Dluhosh said. "What I do is a very personal thing for each patient I visit."

Not all patients want to be serenaded, though most do. "I totally understand that," he said. "Music can't be therapeutic if a patient isn't receptive to it."

Most days Dluhosh strolls the halls of Kadlec strumming his guitar. He keeps yellow sticky notes stuck to the guitar so he can write down and remember the type of music or title of a certain song a patient may request. He also uses the notes to remind himself of the room numbers of patients who have requested a session.

He also plays for patients who are undergoing rehab as they struggle to rehabilitate torn and twisted body parts.

But it's the youngest patients who are perhaps the most fun to entertain. "Children are especially responsive to music therapy," he said. "Being in a hospital can be scary, especially for kids. And they love it when I bring the drums along and like all kinds of music."

Adults, however, are a little more selective.

"Everyone is different," he said. "Some people like Mozart and some like Metallica. I do my best to provide both."

Lola Yale of Kennewick was thrilled that her husband's hospital stay included music therapy.

"I saw this young man with a guitar walking down the hall and thought, 'How wonderful, a musician,' " she said.

So she asked Dluhosh to play for her husband, Bob. He was on his way to visit another patient but promised he would return.

"My husband and I both so enjoy music, we always have," Yale said. "It was wonderful to have Bill come and play for a few minutes."

Dluhosh said music has a way of motivating people to endure a little longer the things they usually hate to do, which can include painful treatments or therapy as well as normal exercise.

"It's been proven that people who exercise with music do it longer," he said.

Music also can help process emotions more calmly, such as the trauma that comes when someone learns they have cancer, he added. That's been the case with Miller, 45, who's been hospitalized since early January undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatments for leukemia.

"Even when my family comes to visit me, they like the music," she said. "They love to listen to Bill play. Some songs he plays put me immediately to sleep, others take longer because I want to stay awake and listen."

Hospitals and doctors across the country have embraced music therapy as an important benefit to a patient's well-being and speed of recovery, said Kadlec spokesman Jim Hall. Some doctors even allow patients to pick out their surgery music.

"I particularly enjoy helping people pick out their music before surgery," Dr. Alice Cash, a medical blogger, said on her website Healing Music Enterprises in Kentucky.

"Patients tell me the process of making the tapes distracted them from worrying about the outcome (of their surgery)," she said.

Doctors at Kadlec agree on the benefits of music.

"I am very supportive of music therapy in the hospital setting," said Dr. Donna Beeson, a full-time staff physician at Kadlec. "Patients are often filled with anxiety when they're here and it's been shown that music can help ease that anxiety. It also helps calm the overall hospital environment."

Miller agrees and says music not only eases her anxiety but also breaks up the monotony of a long-term hospital stay. It also helps maintain her sense of humor.

Besides finding a bone marrow donor match, Miller said her ultimate fantasy is to have Dluhosh play his guitar as she receives her weekly massage with an adorable little pooch curled up at her feet.

"I can dream, can't I?" Miller said, cracking a mischievous grin.

-- Dori O'Neal: 582-1514; doneal@tricityherald.com