Poetry and music to alleviate the social isolation imposed by COVID-19 | Gisele Lobato | TEDxLaçador

Dr. Gisele Lobato shares the experience that she and other colleagues in the internal medicine service of a private hospital in Porto Alegre have had. They are responsible for patients infected by COVID-19 and helping these patients go through the social isolation that this pandemic requires. Gisele talks about negative emotional aspects caused by isolation: anxiety, sadness, and fear. She tells how art, through poetry and music, can help alleviate this suffering.

Dr. Gisele Lobato is a physician and internist, and she holds a master's and doctorate in Medical Sciences. She is the coordinator of the Scientific Education at the Internal Medicine Residency at Hospital Moinhos de Vento, in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

I want to share with you

the results we're getting

with hospital patients
quarantined for COVID-19.

First of all, we're a group of colleagues
from Hospital Moinhos de Vento

who are working on a project

to try to understand the emotional aspects
of what is happening to us.

What is quarantine? What is isolation?

Quarantine isn't 40 days, of course.

The practice of quarantine
began during the 14th century

as a response to the Black Plague,

and it was first applied in Venice.

Since then we've seen

that separation of sick people
from healthy people

somehow brought an improvement

from an epidemiological point of view.

At the time, there was no such thing,
but we know more about this today.

That's why the quarantine exists,

and that's why today

people suffering from any
potentially contaminating disease

must be separated from others.

What do we understand about this?

What does it mean to stay apart?
What does it mean to stay away?

As Morena Mariah said in her talk,

the vulnerability we face -

not only now, but always,
we're always vulnerable.

So, you imagine:

I'm very well,

I'm working, I'm talking,

I do the things I like doing,

and then I begin to feel a bit more tired.

I feel a bit more tired,
but we're always tired,

we work a lot, anyway ...

A headache appears, so I take
a painkiller and that's it.

Next day, it's a little worse,

headache again, anyway,

one never thinks much
about these symptoms.

On the third day, when it becomes
a little more serious,

when pain appears in the body,
and there's a fever,

you find yourself forced to seek help.

This vulnerability itself,

as Morena calls it,
in the face of something unknown,

manifests itself in us
through physical symptoms

and impacts us emotionally.

What will we do with that?

We go to the emergency room -

a hospital emergency,

Today, the emergency rooms,
are differentiated, you know.

There are emergency rooms specifically
for people with respiratory symptoms.

We arrive at this emergency room,
and we don't know anyone.

We're attended by fully protected people:

gloves, face coverings,
face shields, aprons.

The contact with us
is reduced to a minimum:

simply to check our blood pressure
and temperature.

Then they send us to do blood tests,
and we go for a CT scan.

Well, that's the end of the world.

The unknown world of a hospital -

nobody likes hospitals.

We like hospitals
when little babies are born.

We go, visit and leave.

This is the good side of the hospital.

But this patient, that could be me,

isn't progressing enough

and is obliged to stay in the hospital
as a safety measure.

I go to a room in a special unit,

and there I'm completely
isolated in this room.

No one arrives at my door
or comes into the room

unless they are fully protected.

I can't talk with my family
except by cellphone.

I get no affection.
I get no hugs from anyone.

I have absolutely no control over my life.

I don't have it.

This generates a series of emotions:

I get depressed,

I get extremely anxious
because I don't know what's happening,

and even worse,
I don't know what will happen.

Will I be all right?

Will I make progress?
Will I have to go to an ICU?

In an Intensive Care Unit,
I'll have to be sedated

to be able to withstand
the mechanical ventilation

provided by a ventilator,

a device that puts air into us
because we can't do it ourselves.

Will I make progress that way?

What about my family?

What about money to pay the bills?

All of this often generates

a disproportional series
of emotions inside us.

We begin to see ourselves as trapped.

We see ourselves faced
with these circumstances

over which we don't have any control.

And since we don't have any control -

normally we seem
to have control over things,

which gives us a sensation of security -

but right now we don't feel
secure about anything.

There are interesting studies

that compare prisoners in jail -

clearly there's bias in that -

with hospital patients.

Obviously these studies were done
prior to the coronavirus,

but the feelings people face

of suffering,

of being confined, and of anger
are very similar.

What do we think about then?

We think about trying to provide,

trying to use some extremely
easy resources we know,

to reduce and minimize a little bit

this sense of suffering and abandonment.

We understand the medicine -

nowadays everybody
understands medicine this way,

we're not different from others -

we understand medicine
in a more holistic way.

By holistic I mean

a type of medicine

that's not just worried
about physical symptoms.

Physical symptoms happen in a person.

Each person is a person,

with their own particularities,

their own history,

and their own emotions.

So it's very important
that we can understand

that, at this time,
we must treat everyone differently.

We can't only think
about their positivity for COVID

or if the PCR will react or not.

No. This is also important, of course.

There are new protocols all the time
about what the best medicines are

and what is the best strategy to reduce
the impact of the disease on people,

but we understand it in another way.

We are introducing music and poetry

to quarantined hospital patients.

We've done this, we're doing this,
and it's a work in progress.

It's been extremely nice

and very cool

what we've gotten in return.

We've just started this work recently,

and the feedback -

the responses people
send to me via WhatsApp

every time I send a song to them,

or a poem -

has been extremely rewarding.

And it's something simple.

It's something so simple.

We chose five authors,

five poets -

unfortunately I didn't remember
Thiago de Mello,

he's a brilliant poet -

but anyway, poetry that gives
people the desire to live,

poetry that helps people
be optimistic in life,

to realize that
their condition is temporary,

and that, many times,

what seems like it will last forever,
won't last forever.

And this pandemic, is like that.

Of course, it's taking a while,
but it will happen, we'll have a vaccine.

Many people are recovering,

fortunately, the majority,
at least in Brazil.

The sample we have shows
that people are getting better.

The same way with the music.

We have used the music -

classical music,

it's not punk rock, nothing like that,

just music that can
inspire us from inside.

And think, "How beautiful
it is now to listen to music.

It means I'll leave here.

It means that I'll live better days.

It means that I'll learn
from everything that's happening to me."

It's not magical thought,

that's not what we want
to transmit to people.

What we want is to integrate

the symptoms of people

who are affected by this serious illness

with all their particularities,

helping them, who knows, to suffer less -

and find a way to overcome it -

like a current of a river that is passing

and that will pass.

Finally.

This is what I wanted to share with you.