While nursing and music therapy have been two important disciplines in analysis of pain management, there has been little research exploring these areas from a cross disciplinary perspective. This paper highlights the importance of acknowledging and beginning to understand the role of scientific and practical cooperation between music therapists and health care professionals.

In particular, our aim has been to initiate a dialogue about how subject-specific knowledge from both music therapy and nursing – in terms of person-centered care – can strengthen the usage of music as pain management for short-term management of acute pain during painful treatments such as dressing change procedure in wound care. On this basis, a pilot study was conducted regarding wound care. The study has been approved by the ethics committee in Stockholm. The paper is based on the result from this study where the aim was to find a model for pain management as a complementary treatment based on knowledge from nursing and music therapy.

Philosophical starting points were the “life-world” perspective of Merleau-Ponty as well as Ricoeur’s ethical thoughts. The result has a potential reach beyond wound care that can be used in several treatments that entails acute pain.