The American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine - an organization we’ve had the honor of serving through workshops for the past two years - published a study in 2020 where art therapy was shown to have a significant reduction in anxiety, depression, and pain as well as a significant increase in well-being in 98% of the patients. Our workshop services palliative and hospice care agencies equips professionals and caretakers with tools to help patients feel a sense of control, engage outside their bubble, communicate, reminisce, focus on what is possible rather than what has been lost, and create a sense of accomplishment and purpose.

BENEFITs

1. During art making people often shift away from the presence of illness or pain. In a study published in 2020 by the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, art therapy was show to have a significant reduction in anxiety, depression, and pain as well as a significant increase in well-being. 98% of the patients considered the art therapy helpful.

2. While it is natural for people to begin looking more inward at the end of their life, that process can be accompanied by a sense of isolation and depression.  Sometimes patients don’t know how to explain their overwhelming feelings in words, but they can do it through artistic expression or by making things.

3. For patients overwhelmed with a sense of losing control of things around them, art therapy, and the process of making art, can give them back a sense of control. Creative expression encourages people to move and be active to the extent they are able, and it can help them get engaged and out of their bubble. 

4. Art therapy can help patients review their life and reminisce. It can bring reconciliation and closure, or it can be a legacy they leave for their loved ones.

5. It can help create a sense of accomplishment and purpose.

6. Art allows room for what is possible rather than what has been lost.

7. People often get very frustrated because they can no longer communicate with the world around them in the same way they used to be able to. Creating art is a way for them to communicate.

8. For a person who has been thrown off course by their illness, the works produced in art therapy can provide a roadmap toward wholeness. 

The following Art Therapy inspired exercise is something you can try with your patients!