How Art Therapy Interacts with Medicinal Care and Can Improve Patient Outcome

Abstract

The impact of art therapy, specifically painting and studying painted works on patient coping, recovery, and healing is not highly researched and professionals commonly regard art therapy as only beneficial to an emotional extent on health. Problematically, there is not much data and clinical research collected or performed regarding the role of art therapy in a hospital setting, and research that exists often uses a small population, less than 50 persons, to determine conclusions. The aim of this research paper is to survey the available data and research regarding the integration of painting or studying paintings in a hospital or clinical environment on patient health outcomes. This paper determines if a more holistic approach to healing using art therapy over solely analgesics or other Western medicine methods of health intervention can impact patients of many different diseases in a positive way. Diseases studied alongside art therapy and discussed in this paper include but are not limited to, Alzheimer's, strokes, end-stage kidney failure, depression, Schizophrenia, Diabetes, PTSD, Cancer, and other Chronic illnesses. I used secondary research as the methodology for this paper, conducting a survey of the existing research. Many of the studies and research trials that were reviewed in this paper used interviews, questionnaires, regression analysis, and paired t-tests, as well as other quantitative measures. From my findings, I argue that the act of painting and studying paintings in a clinical setting does extend beyond creative expression and can positively impact holistic healing through neurobiology and biosocial mechanisms. Many quantitative metrics were used to determine the success of an art therapy intervention in this paper such as blood pressure, direct effects on a patient's functional recovery, length of stay in a hospital, and cortisol levels. Overall, art therapy can prove beneficial to the medical community and patient interaction with painting and paintings should become more widespread in medical interventions.