Lorrie Kubicek, a music therapist at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, likes to ask her patients three questions:

1. Have you ever touched a musical instrument before?

2. If you could wake up tomorrow and magically play any instrument better than anyone, which instrument would that be?

3. What’s your desert island playlist? If you could only have one CD for the rest of your life—what songs would make it on that list?

The answers, she told Boston.com, may help relieve their pain. And according to a recent study, she’s right.

Wrote this feature for Boston.com – more here.