When you walk into a hospital ward you generally expect to hear a low murmur of conversation, the odd cough and a clattering of plates and cutlery.

But on one ward at Brighton General Hospital, you may walk in to find patients indulging in a sing-song.

Every week, Louise Beckerman arrives at E2 ward armed with a guitar to run a sound and song therapy session as part of a pilot scheme to see if music can help heal.

Patients on the ward are elderly and frail but many, including Eunice Palmer, 93, are more than happy to join in.

Ms Beckerman, works as a practice nurse in Cuckfield but is also a sound and song therapist and healer.

She encourages patients to join in with old favourites, get involved in making some musical sounds of their own and help create their own songs.

She said: "Everybody can participate in music by listening, experiencing, swaying, clapping in time, humming or singing so the experience can be passive or active.

"Many people who cannot use speech are often able to retrieve lyrics in a song by singing.

"Music is useful in countering the isolation in patients who cannot communicate through speech.

"Familiar old songs can stimulate seemingly lost memories in people whose memory problems might be due to dementia, head trauma or stroke.

"They might be able to express their feelings through a known song or an improvisation such as being encouraged to make up their own songs about their lives."

Ms Beckerman said integrating music could help make a hospital ward more welcoming and help boost the healing process.

Ward sister Linda Meaney said the sessions so far had been going well.

She said: "It helps to lift people's spirits and gets everyone talking and smiling to each other. It makes a lot of difference to patients."

Mrs Palmer said: "It is good fun. I haven't sung for a long time but I enjoyed getting involved."

The three-month pilot scheme has been running for almost a month and Ms Beckerman is hoping to extend it further if it proves a success.

She is hoping to find some space on the ward where patients can get together for larger group sessions and there are plans to hold a concert in the hospital chapel.

Ms Beckerman also provides similar support to patients at St Peter and St James' Hospice in Wivelsfield and the Triangle Healing Trust in Cuckfield, near Haywards Heath.