Musically informed sonification for self-directed Chronic pain physical rehabilitation

Chronic pain is pain that persists past the expected time of healing. Unlike acute pain, chronic pain is often no longer a sign of damage and may never disappear. Remaining physically active is very important for people with chronic pain, but in the presence of such persistent pain it can be hard to maintain a good level of physical activity due to factors such as fear of pain or re-injury. This paper introduces a sonification methodology which makes use of characteristics and structural elements of Western tonal music to highlight and mark aspects of movement and breathing that are important to build confidence in peoples body capability in a way that is easy to attend to and devoid of pain. The design framework and initial conceptual design that uses musical elements such as melody, harmony, texture and rhythm for improving the efficiency of the sonification used to support physical activity for people with chronic pain is here presented and discussed. In particular, we discuss how such structured sonification can be used to facilitate movement and breathing during physical rehabilitation exercises that tend to cause anxiety in people with chronic pain. Experiments are currently being undertaken to investigate the use of these musical elements in sonification for chronic pain.