How Art Is Improving Healthcare

Most artists don’t need anyone to tell them about the healing power of art. It’s why most of them get into it in the first place—it simply makes them feel good.

However, the rest of the world is now waking up to the benefits of art to mental health. Research in the last couple decades has illuminated the effect of art on our emotional state, and healthcare professionals are now incorporating art in the healing process. 

(Courtesy of Cargo Collective)

Experiencing Art

The bus Lynne Panayiotis and her husband George was riding in rolled, hit a pole and trapped Lynne underneath for two hours. She lost her left leg and became a paraplegic. She also lost her husband.

“One day she curled into the fetal position, unable to get out of bed,” reports the Australian. “Staff at Melbourne’s Royal Talbot Rehabilitation Centre suggested she might like to try music therapy…The music unlocked a river of grief—and Panayiotis wept. ‘I didn’t start healing until that happened,’ she says.”

(Courtesy of a Healthier Michigan)

Research shows that art can indeed help healing. One study, in the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, found a direct tie between the type of art hung on walls and the levels of patient anxiety.

The study showed that “medication dispensed by nurses for anxiety and agitation was significantly lower on days when a realistic nature image of a landscape was displayed, as compared to days when abstract art or no art was displayed…Environment can have a powerful impact on healing and must be explored further for the mental health setting.”