The Power of Touch: Trust
[vc_row content_placement=”top”][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”The Power of Touch: Trust” font_container=”tag:h1|text_align:left|color:%231e73be” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_custom_heading text=”By Brandon Ness, PT, DPT, PhD” font_container=”tag:h4|text_align:left|color:%23000000″ use_theme_fonts=”yes” css=”.vc_custom_1726074234313{padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”][vc_column_text]Download the article (pdf)[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]For me, as a child, contentment arrived in the form of a pencil and paper. I drew pictures throughout my childhood. I continued to draw occasionally through college, but time limitations and other […]
Piloting a Photography Program as Recreational Therapy for Adults With Spinal Cord Injury
[vc_row content_placement=”top”][vc_column][vc_custom_heading source=”post_title” font_container=”tag:h1|text_align:left|color:%231e73be” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_custom_heading text=”By Yaga Szlachcic, MD; Nicole Bayus, MA; Michael A. Ziegler, BA” font_container=”tag:h4|text_align:left|color:%23000000″ use_theme_fonts=”yes” css=”.vc_custom_1634658867220{padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”][vc_column_text]Download the article (pdf)[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]In recent decades, the Western concept of health has evolved past a strictly biomedical model to one that encompasses the entire person. While physical survival might be our most basic need, it […]
My Journey Using Art as Physical Therapy
Babs McDonald describes her journey toward recovery from an ischemic stroke through painting and sketching. Through numerous examples of her artwork, she details her experiences pushing through impairment to create images chronicling her life. Based on her success, she advocates for the use of fine art techniques to foster upper limb movement in stroke survivors. Creating her art, she says, has taught her that “there are no failures in my recovery, only new challenges.”
Dynamic Autonomy in Chronic Pain Management: Frida Kahlo Illustrates
As today’s healthcare professionals struggle to address the challenges of chronic-pain management, Debra Gorman-Badar argues that current multidisciplinary programs are missing a crucial component: an updated conception of patient autonomy. She details how expressive therapies help patients integrate their chronic-pain experiences into their lives and promote healing self-knowledge—as Frida Kahlo did through her remarkable paintings.
Art Informing Interdisciplinary Care for a Veteran Recovering from Traumatic Brain Injury: A Case Study
This poignant case study, featuring impressive art created by a military veteran with traumatic brain injury and comorbidities, expresses the power of Art Therapy to heal profound physical and psychological wounds. “The veteran’s art increased his self-awareness while informing the clinical team of his ongoing experience,” Gayla Elliott notes. His art and his words make a compelling case for adding art to the rehabilitation process.
Historical Perspectives in Art: The Value of Art History in a Pandemic: Teaching as a Healing Force
In this powerful reflection, Siobhan Conaty shows how art history as a health humanities discipline can provide two uniquely different (yet equally important) teaching methods for students reckoning with a health crisis. One negative (a critical reading of graphic pandemic images) and one positive (looking to art as a powerful healing instrument), each serves an important purpose. Conaty details the positive approach she recently chose for her students — emphasizing art as a healing force.
DPT Program Stages an Art Show: Using Art to Develop a Heart for the Profession of Physical Therapy
Sue Klappa, PT, PhD, and colleagues discuss how Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) students created visual art projects to gain a deeper understanding of how physical therapy transforms society and improves quality of life for patients.
War Photography: The Physical and Psychological Costs
Exploring the lives and careers of 12 extraordinary war photographers, Anthony Feinstein, PhD, underscores the grave danger these visual historians encounter when covering conflict and raises our awareness of the individuals behind the camera, who risk their lives to bear witness to violence and suffering.
Art Saved My Life
Bill Forester reflects on re-discovering himself after suffering a massive hemorrhagic stroke. Realizing that he would not be returning to work, Bill and his family devoted their time to his rehabilitation, embarking on an ambitious path of trial and error and the ultimate discovery of painting as a medium for rehabilitation.
Scarred for Life: Using Art to Bring Humanity to Trauma Recovery
Artist Ted Meyer shares his story of how he turns trauma into art that transforms the way patients and care providers view physical scars.
