Arts and Health

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Arts and Health

• Dr Chris Watts

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The MAP Foundation builds on the work of
artist Michele Angelo Petrone who, following the
diagnosis of Hodgkin's disease in 1994 and
subsequent treatment, painted The Emotional
Cancer Journey 21 pictures, accompanied by
powerful prose, expressing his feelings of
isolation, pain and loss, as well as love and
hope.
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The Healing Touch by Michele Angelo Petrone
'I need to know that this is my body. And I need
to know everything that is happening to my body
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'Healing is not brought about just by
medicine. It's not just treatment which cures
you but all that encompasses the human touch'
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• Art can reduce fear and isolation of people with
  serious illnesses, and improve understanding and
  communication for health professionals.
• MAP FOUNDATION.
• Centre for Medical HumanitiesDepartment of
  Primary Care and Population ScienceRoyal Free
  and University College Medical School

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Art reaches the emotions.
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the beauty of the universe
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..and the Sun also at the Tate gallery, with sun
bathers.
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The Government has outlined the benefits from
arts in health..

• Promoting the benefits of good health and well
  being
• Providing stimulating and striking environments
  in hospitals and health care settings
• Providing therapeutic uses for music and drama in
  the process of healing
• Improving the mental, emotional and spiritual
  state of health service users and professionals
• Identifying health care needs by engaging
  excluded groups in arts activities in
  collaboration with professionals
• Improving sensory awareness, mental activity and
  physical dexterity
• Helping people to communicate effectively with
  each other
• Giving artists opportunities to develop their
  practice and
• Rewarding carers and staff
• Chris Smith, Secretary of State for Culture Media
  and Sport February 2001

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and more recently.

• The use of the arts in providing particular
  services, for example their use in day centres as
  a component of rehabilitation or for their
  therapeutic value.
• . their contribution to improving particular
  physical environments - such as within hospitals,
  social service and housing offices, and also in
  the community in housing estates or shopping
  areas
• the arts have made a direct contribution to
  health education and promotion work, helping to
  develop and reinforce positive empowering images
  to both involve and to get messages across to
  different groups.
• . the social and personal ways that the arts
  can - and do - contribute to health and
  well-being. Arts related activity, from painting,
  to music, to theatre and performance all have
  important social contributions. Their benefit as
  a way of further involving and engaging people
  within communities is widely recognised and
  valued.
• . the direct personal satisfaction that
  involvement in the arts can bring to individuals
  that make it very clear that they have a crucial
  role to play in supporting our efforts to improve
  health and reduce inequalities.

Hazel Blears MP Minister for Public Health
Lowry, Salford25 February 2003
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The study of the arts in health has developed
recently
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At Durham University
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There is presently a window of opportunity to
realise a social model of health. The move to
multi-agency working is new to the NHS. Arts can
have both an integral and a catalytic role in
this. What used to be understood as the
preventative approach to healthcare is
increasingly about building capacity for change,
externally in developing social capital
internally in improved training and holistic
approaches, approaches that the arts can help
define and contextualise, Mike White and
Mary Robson, Centre for Arts and Humanities in
Health and Medicine, June 2003
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Mike White and Mary Robson Centre for Arts and
Humanities in Health and Medicine University of
Durham
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Practical applications of arts in health
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Architecture and Design

• Architecture is also about the spiritual needs
  of people as well as their material needs. It has
  as much to do with optimism, joy and reassurance
  of order in a disordered world of 'privacy in
  the midst of' many of space in a crowded site
  of light on a dull day.
• Sir Norman Foster

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Built Environment

• Use of art and design in creation of healing
  healthcare environments

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Art in Hospitals

• Use of visual and performing arts to improve
  experience of patients, staff, visitors in
  hospitals, to promote healing

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Medical Humanities

• Use of literature, visual art, drama to broaden
  doctor training, promote empathy and
  communication

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Art Therapists

• Use of various arts to treat labelled conditions,
  clinical aims

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Community Arts

• Use of arts as powerful tool to build
  communities. Use of arts to consult communities,
  give voice to more socially excluded groups

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What is the evidence that it is beneficial? HEA
review 2000

• Arts projects and initiatives make a unique
  contribution to building social capital
• They do so by enhancing wellbeing and self-esteem

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Best practice in arts projects are

• Specific in that there is no single winning
  formula
• Local in that they tend to be defined and
  determined by local conditions and outcomes
• Are generated by personal and passionate impetus
• Personalities play a key part in making projects
  successful
• They reflect the importance of personal
  expression in arts
• Processes and outcomes are subjective by nature.

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Community lantern display happy hearts,
Wrekenton.
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But evaluation still needs further development
HDA Report on Arts in Health, 2002

• The majority of people working in community-based
• art for health appear to recognise that it is
  important
• to evaluate their activity.
• Many are attempting to evaluate, but they are
• struggling to find appropriate methods, and the
• evaluation they carry out is frequently
  inadequate.
• Many projects do not have clearly stated aims.
• Projects address various aspects of health and
• wellbeing, but very few explicitly aim to have a
  direct
• effect on health.
• Art for health appears to be working in the
  context
• of medicine and the health service, and so it
  may be
• assumed that it has similar aims. However, it is
  often
• trying to do something quite different to
  medicine.
• It is therefore inappropriate to assume that art
  for
• health should use medical models of health and
• wellbeing, measurement and assessment.

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Thank you