Art therapy can reduce pain and anxiety in cancer patients (press release)

Art therapy can reduce pain and anxiety in cancer patients
(press release)

Friday, August 25, 2006 by: NewsTarget

Key concepts: cancer, cancer patients and anxiety.

A study published today in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management found that art therapy can reduce a broad spectrum of symptoms related to pain and anxiety in cancer patients. In the study done at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, cancer patients reported significant reductions in eight of nine symptoms measured by the Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale (ESAS) after spending an hour working on art projects of their choice.

Fifty patients from the inpatient oncology unit at Northwestern Memorial were enrolled in the study over a four-month period. The ESAS is a numeric scale allowing patients to assess their symptoms of pain, tiredness, nausea, depression, anxiety, drowsiness, lack of appetite, well-being and shortness of breath. Eight of these nine symptoms improved; nausea was the only symptom that did not change as a result of the art therapy session. “Cancer patients are increasingly turning to alternative and complementary therapies to reduce symptoms, improve quality of life and boost their ability to cope with stress,” says Judith Paice, PhD, RN, director, Cancer Pain Program, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and an author on the study. “We wanted to see if the creative process involved in making art is healing and life-enhancing.

Our study provides beginning evidence for the important role art therapy can play in reducing symptoms. Art therapy provides a distraction that allows patients to focus on something positive instead of their health for a time, and it also gives patients something they can control.” Each art therapy session was individualized and patients were offered a choice of subject matter and media. When participants could not use their hands or were not comfortable using the art materials, the art therapist would do the art making under the direction of the subject or they could look at and discuss photographic images that were assembled into a book.

Sessions ranged from light entertaining distraction to investigating deep psychological issues, says Nancy Nainis, MA, ATR, an art therapist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, who is the lead author on the study. “We were especially surprised to find the reduction in ‘tiredness’,” says Ms. Nainis. “Several subjects made anecdotal comments that the art therapy had energized them. This is the first study to document a reduction in tiredness as a result of art therapy.” “Art provides a vehicle for expression,” says Dr. Paice. “It may be preferential to some cancer patients who may be uncomfortable with conventional psychotherapy or those who find verbal expression difficult.”

Source: http://www.newstarget.com/020154.html

Cancer patients find comfort in artistic expression

Art therapy

Cancer patients find comfort in artistic expression

Jodie Sinnema, edmontonjournal.com

Published: Tuesday, January 09, 2007

When Lee and her son sat down with their chisels to carve their soapstone polar bears, the pressure was off to talk about Lee’s terminal bone-marrow cancer, which she has fought for 10 years.

Lee didn’t have to be the concerned mom, pestering her 12-year-old son about his emotions and staring him down. Instead, art became a pathway for those emotions and thoughts to come out.

“That two-day camp taught me that I don’t need to corner and drill him about his feelings, but rather focus on something else that we both enjoy and let the conversation take care of itself,” Lee wrote to the director of the Arts In Medicine program at the Cross Cancer Institute.

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Marilyn Hundleby with artworks created by patients at the Cross Cancer Institute.

John Lucas/Edmonton Journal

“Sometimes we just carve in silence, but I am even grateful for those moments because we are spending time together sharing a common interest. … The biggest gift is that I have found a non-invasive pathway to my son’s heart and I am creating my greatest masterpiece yet.”

Lee, now 44, was diagnosed with cancer when she was only 33 and was told she had two years to live since there is no known cure. Her son, only two at the time, has since grown up thinking chemotherapy, radiation, bone fractures and bone marrow transplants are just part of the norm.

Last year, Lee decided to sign the two of them up for a specialized Arts in Medicine program offered at the Cross Cancer Institute, since communication has become difficult with her “tweenager.”

The program, which has been formally offered for 10 years, is the only one of its kind and size in Canada to offer a dozen art choices including painting, photography, poetry, choir, soapstone carving and fibre and bead arts to help cancer patients work through their anger and confusion, said psychologist and program director Marilyn Hundleby.

As opposed to art therapy, where psychologists and therapists help patients read their deep emotions by examining the arts-in-medicine program’s use the artistic process itself to help patients see the world with new eyes.

Professional artists lead the group, then a psychologist, social worker or art therapist have patients write journal entries about what the art means in their life journey.

“This isn’t about craft, it’s about the process, about creating art and understanding one’s experience,” said Hundleby, whose program receives $140,000 from the Alberta Cancer Foundation each year. “It allows us to problem solve, to tap into wisdom, to come to an understanding where we can move through a difficult illness with a greater sense of control and our own power to make things happen that are beneficial to us.”

Oftentimes, patients think they can’t possibly paint or carve a sculpture. Then they see the beautiful end result.
“If I can do this, then the potential and possibilities become apparent,” Hundleby said. “If I can transform stone into something beautiful, what else can I
 do?”
Source: http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/story.html?id=a96de7b7-7095-4f0e-8ab7-20d44434bc19&k=0