While some may be nervous during surgery, one musician who played his saxophone for the entirety of a nine-hour brain surgery whistled a different tune.
Dr. Christian Brogna, an expert in awake surgery, performed the procedure in Rome’s Paideia International Hospital, according to CBS News. The 35-year-old patient playing the saxophone actually assisted in the surgery because it helped Brogna map out the musician’s brain functions in real-time.
“To play an instrument means that you can understand music, which is a high cognitive function. It means you can interact with the instrument, you can coordinate both hands, you can exercise memory, you can count — because music is mathematics — you can test vision because the patient has to see the instrument, and you can test the way the patient interacts with the rest of the team,” Brogna told CBS News.
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The fact that the patient was able to play the instrument for the entirety of the surgery proved its success because it was performed on an especially tricky part of the brain.
“The tumor was located in a very, very complex area of the brain,” he added. “Moreover, the patient is left-handed. This makes things more complicated because the neural pathways of the brain are much more complicated.”
The medical team met with the patient over half a dozen times before the surgery. The patient said that it was especially important to retain his saxophone-playing ability during these consultations.
“When we operate on the brain, we are operating on the sense of self, so we need to make sure that we do not damage the patient as a person — their personality, the way they feel emotions, the way they get through life. The patient will tell you what is important in his life and it is your job to protect his wishes,” Brogna said.
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The surgery was performed on Monday, and the patient was discharged from the hospital by Thursday. It was the most recent of several hundred surgeries Brogna has performed, the report said.
