Medical problems of performing artists
-
Med Probl Perform Art · Mar 2016
Life Expectancy and Cause of Death in Popular Musicians: Is the Popular Musician Lifestyle the Road to Ruin?
Does a combination of lifestyle pressures and personality, as reflected in genre, lead to the early death of popular musicians? We explored overall mortality, cause of death, and changes in patterns of death over time and by music genre membership in popular musicians who died between 1950 and 2014. The death records of 13,195 popular musicians were coded for age and year of death, cause of death, gender, and music genre. Musician death statistics were compared with age-matched deaths in the US population using actuarial methods. ⋯ Mortality impacts differed by music genre. In particular, excess suicides and liver-related disease were observed in country, metal, and rock musicians; excess homicides were observed in 6 of the 14 genres, in particular hip hop and rap musicians. For accidental death, actual deaths significantly exceeded expected deaths for country, folk, jazz, metal, pop, punk, and rock.
-
Med Probl Perform Art · Mar 2016
Occupational Diseases of Professional Orchestra Musicians from Northern Portugal: A Descriptive Study.
Owing to repetitive movements and a very stressful and competitive lifestyle, musicians are a group that may be prone to suffer from occupational diseases. According to the literature, musicians are affected mainly by two types of occupational diseases: music performance anxiety (MPA) and playing-related musculoskeletal disorders (PRMDs). The aim of this study was to describe the prevalence of the most common complaints affecting musicians in the three professional orchestras from northern Portugal. ⋯ The present work covers about 50% of all Portuguese professional orchestra musicians. It raises awareness of the importance of focusing on the high prevalence of professional diseases among musicians.