AUSTIN, TEXAS — Lying in her bed at Dell Seton Medical Center at the University of Texas at Austin, 64-year-old Pamela Mansfield sways her feet to the rhythm of George Jones’ “She Thinks I Still Care.” Mansfield is still recovering much of her mobility after a recent neck surgery, but she finds a way to move to the music floating from a record player that was wheeled into her room.

“Seems to be the worst part is the stiffness in my ankles and the no feeling in the hands,” she says. “But music makes everything better.”

The record player is courtesy of the ATX-VINyL program, a project dreamed up by Dr. Tyler Jorgensen to bring music to the bedside of patients dealing with difficult diagnoses and treatments. He collaborates with a team of volunteers who wheel the player on a cart to patients’ rooms, along with a selection of records in their favorite genres.

“I think of this record player as a time machine,” he said. “You know, something starts spinning — an old, familiar song on a record player — and now you’re back at home, you’re out of the hospital, you’re with your family, you’re with your loved ones.”

Daniela Vargas, a volunteer for the ATX-VINyL program, wheels a record player to the hospital room of a palliative care patient in Austin, Texas.

Lorianne Willett/KUT News

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The healing power of Country music… and Thin Lizzy

Mansfield wanted to hear country music: Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, George Jones. That genre reminds her of listening to records with her parents, who helped form her taste in music. Almost as soon as the first record spins, she starts cracking jokes.

“I have great taste in music. Men, on the other hand … ehhh. I think my picker’s broken,” she says.

Other patients ask for jazz, R&B or holiday records.

The man who gave Jorgensen the idea for ATX-VINyL loved classic rock. That was around three years ago, when Jorgensen, a long-time emergency medicine physician, began a fellowship in palliative care — a specialty aimed at improving quality of life for people with serious conditions, including terminal illnesses.

Shortly after he began the fellowship, he says he struggled to connect with a particular patient.

“I couldn’t draw this man out, and I felt like he was really struggling and suffering,” Jorgensen said.

He had the idea to try playing the patient some music.

He went with “The Boys Are Back in Town,” by the 1970s Irish rock group Thin Lizzy, and saw an immediate change in the patient.

“He was telling me old stories about his life. He was getting more honest and vulnerable about the health challenges he was facing,” Jorgensen said. “And it just struck me that all this time I’ve been practicing medicine, there’s such a powerful tool that is almost universal to the human experience, which is music, and I’ve never tapped into it.”

Dr. Tyler Jorgensen plays vinyl records as a form of music therapy for palliative care patients in Austin, Texas. Willie Nelson’s albums are a perennial hit.

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Creating new memories

Jorgensen realized records could lift the spirits of patients dealing with heavy circumstances in hospital spaces that are often aesthetically bare. And he thought vinyl would offer a more personal touch than streaming a digital track through a smartphone or speaker.

“There’s just something inherently warm about the friction of a record — the pops, the scratches,” he said. “It sort of resonates through the wooden record player, and it just feels different.”

Since then, he has built up a collection of 60 records and counting at the hospital. The most-requested album, by a landslide, is Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours from 1977. Willie is also popular, along with Etta James and John Denver. And around the holidays, the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown Christmas gets a lot of spins.

These days, it’s often a volunteer who rolls the record player from room to room after consulting nursing staff about patients and family members who are struggling and could use a visit.

Daniela Vargas, the UT Austin pre-med undergraduate who heads up the volunteer cohort, became passionate about music therapy years ago when she and her sister began playing violin for isolated patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. She said she sees similar benefits when she curates a collection of records for a patient today.

“We are usually not in the room for the entire time, so it’s a more intimate experience for the patient or family, but being able to interact with the patient in the beginning and at the end can be really transformative,” Vargas said.

Often, the palliative care patients visited by ATX-VINyL are near the end of life.

Jorgensen feels that the record player provides an interruption of the heaviness those patients and their families are experiencing. Suddenly, it’s possible to create a new, positive shared experience at a profoundly difficult time.

“Now you’re sort of looking at it together and thinking, ‘What are we going to do with this thing? Let’s play something for Mom, let’s play something for Dad.’” he said. “And you are creating a new, positive, shared experience in the setting of something that can otherwise be very sad, very heavy.”

Other patients, like Pamela Mansfield, are working painstakingly toward recovery.

She has had six neck surgeries since April, when she had a serious fall. But on the day she listened to the George Jones album, she had a small victory to celebrate: She stood up for three minutes, a record since her most recent surgery.

With the record spinning, she couldn’t help but think about the victories she’s still pursuing.

“It’s motivating,” she said. “Me and my broom could dance really well to some of this stuff.”

After prolonged heavy rainfall and devastating flooding across the Pacific north-west in the past few weeks, further flood watches have been issued across California through this week.

With 50-75mm (2-3in) of rainfall already reported across northern California this weekend, a series of atmospheric rivers will continue to bring periods of heavy rain and mountain snow across the northern and central parts of the state, with flood watches extending until Friday.

Cumulative rainfall totals are expected to widely exceed 50mm (2in) across a vast swathe of California by Boxing Day, but with totals around 200-300mm (8-12in) possible for the north-western corner of California and western-facing slopes of the northern Sierra Nevada mountains.

Los Angeles could receive 100-150mm (4-6in) of rainfall between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, which could make it one of the wettest Christmases on record for the city. River and urban flooding are likely – particularly where there is run-off from high ground – with additional risks of mudslides and rockslides in mountain and foothill areas.

Winter storm warnings are also in effect for Yosemite national park, with the potential for 1.8-2.4 metres (6-8ft) of accumulating snow by Boxing Day. Heavy snow alongside strong winds will make travel very difficult over the festive period.

Heavy rain, lightning and strong winds are forecast across large parts of Zimbabwe leading up to Christmas. A level 2 weather warning has been issued by the Meteorological Services Department from Sunday 21 December to Wednesday 24 December. Some areas are expected to see more than 50mm of rainfall within a 24-hour period. The rain will be accompanied by hail, frequent lightning, and strong winds. These conditions have been attributed to the interaction between warm, moist air with low-pressure systems over the western and northern parts of the country.

Australia will see some large variations in temperatures over the festive period. Sydney, which is experiencing temperatures above 40C, is expected to tumble down to about 22C by Christmas Day, about 5C below average for this time of year. Perth is going to see temperatures gradually creep up, reaching a peak of 40C around Christmas Day. This is about 10C above average for this time of year.