Video
Art therapy: A potential treatment for dementiaArt therapy as an anti-depressant treatment -
Aging Ment Health. Yassuda MS, Nunes PV. Innovative psychosocial approaches in old age psychiatry. Cognitive-behavioral therapy, interpersonal psychotherapy, and problem-solving therapy are considered first-line treatments both for adult and elderly patients.
Reminiscence therapy, psychodynamic therapy, support therapy, and nondirective counseling, 3 3. as well as self-esteem therapy, 14 life review therapy, and depression management therapy, 6 6.
can also be beneficial in the treatment of depressive symptoms in the elderly. Among these many therapies and approaches, evidence suggests that active engagement in creative activities, including art, can bring many benefits, including improved well-being, quality of life, health, and socialization.
Bungay H, Clift S. Arts on prescription: a review of practice in the U. Perspect Public Health. Uttley L, Scope A, Stevenson M, Rawdin A, Taylor Buck E, Sutton A, et al. Systematic review and economic modelling of the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of art therapy among people with non-psychotic mental health disorders.
Health Technol Assess. Art therapy is a creative approach used as a therapeutic technique. It is intrinsically connected to artistic making, which has been a human practice since time immemorial. The therapeutic function of art is related to the possibility of concretization of thoughts, feelings, desires, and the facts of life using expressive resources.
Art therapy uses these resources, which mobilize several aspects of the human mind: cognition, the sensorimotor system, emotions, and intuition.
Art therapy does not concern itself only with the final product visual arts, body expression, and other forms of art per se , but also with the creative process and the connection of artistic making and the person who makes it.
Art therapy is suited to treating issues or themes that are also managed by other well-known forms of psychotherapy, such as interpersonal therapy, depression management therapy, and life review therapy. Reynolds CF 3rd. Prevention of depressive disorders: a brave new world. Depress Anxiety.
Art therapy can be used in various populations. For example, it may be particularly beneficial in individuals who do not adapt to psychotherapeutic approaches that are exclusively verbal. Art therapy can help establish communication between patient and therapist and may aid in the emergence of personality aspects or facts of life to be dealt with in the therapeutic process.
Öster I, Svensk AC, Magnusson E, Thyme KE, Sjõdin M, Aström S, et al. Art therapy improves coping resources: a randomized, controlled study among women with breast cancer. Palliat Support Care. Puig A, Lee SM, Goodwin L, Sherrard PAD. The efficacy of creative arts therapies to enhance emotional expression, spirituality, and psychological well-being of newly diagnosed stage I and stage II breast cancer patients: a preliminary study.
Arts Psychother. An art therapy session is often preceded by activities that promote relaxation and introspection, such as mental imagery. It can be used to link sensory perception and emotions, 20 Leão ER, Silva MJP. Música e dor crônica musculoesquelética: o potencial evocativo de imagens mentais.
Rev Latinoam Enferm. and thus relieve the discomfort associated with mood disorders. Apóstolo JLA, Kolkaba K. The effects of guided imagery on comfort, depression, anxiety, and stress of psychiatric inpatients with depressive disorders.
Arch Psychiatr Nurs. Skeie TM, Skeie S, Stiles TC. The effectiveness of pleasant imagery and a distraction task as coping strategies in alleviating experimentally induced dysphoric mood.
Cogn Behav Ther. Meta-analyses and systematic reviews of art therapy are scarce. Although the quality of the randomized trials was generally low, art therapy was associated with significant positive changes in nonpsychotic mental health symptoms relative to control groups in 10 out of the 15 studies.
Therefore, art therapy can be an acceptable treatment and appears to be cost-effective compared with wait-listing, but further studies are needed. Thus, there is evidence that art therapy may contribute to improvement of psychological parameters in different disorders.
However, controlled studies with quantitative measures are still needed to establish its potential role in MDD, a highly prevalent disorder. In this context, the present study was designed to evaluate the effects of 20 sessions of adjunctive art therapy on mood, cognition, and functionality in elderly women with MDD stable under pharmacological treatment.
This randomized, controlled, single-blind study was carried out at the Instituto de Psiquiatria, Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo IPq-HCFMUSP , Brazil. All participants signed an informed consent form approved by the local ethics committee before enrolling in this study.
The study was approved and authorized by the FMUSP ethics committee protocol no. Elderly outpatients attending IPq-FMUSP were invited to take part in the study. Ninety-four patients were initially contacted by telephone and underwent pre-screening see the flow diagram in Figure 1. The inclusion criteria were: a lifetime DSM-5 diagnosis of MDD, 23 Associação Americana de Psiquiatria.
Manual Diagnóstico e Estatístico de Transtornos Mentais, 5a edição DSM Porto Alegre: Artmed; female gender, age 60 years or older, ability to read and write, and agreement to take part in the study. Besides, participants had to be stable on pharmacotherapy for depression, i. Patients with depression scale scores above the cutoff were acceptable, and all had to be available to take part in all evaluations and interventions.
The exclusion criteria were cognitive difficulties suggestive of dementia, defined by a Mini-Mental State Examination MMSE 24 Folstein MF, Folstein SE, McHugh PR.
A practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. J Psychiatr Res. Brucki SM, Nitrini R, Caramelli P, Bertolucci PH, Okamoto IH. Arq Neuropsiquiatr. score below 25 for people with 1 to 4 years of formal schooling or below 27 for people with 5 years or more of schooling.
We also excluded drug users, those with degenerative diseases, and those with any systemic disorders associated with high morbidity and mortality, such as cancers with poor prognosis or progressive renal impairment. Ninety-four patients were initially screened.
Twenty-eight did not meet the inclusion criteria. A psychiatrist interviewed the remaining 66 patients, using the Structured Clinical Interview SCID to confirm MDD diagnosis according to the DSM-5 criteria.
No patient met the exclusion criteria. To randomize the participants, the order of study entry was obeyed for each group of 22 people per semester. Odd-numbered entrants were allocated to the CG 11 patients , and even-numbered entrants constituted the experimental group EG 11 patients.
The CG and EG were thus formed of 33 participants each. At the end of the study, 25 participants were still present in the CG and 31 in the EG. EG participants received 20 art therapy workshops, while the CG did not receive any type of psychotherapy during the study period.
After the study, however, patients in the CG could take part in the art therapy workshops if they so wished. Patients in the CG and in the EG were subjected to the same battery of standardized tests, carried out by the same team of neuropsychologists, at the start of the study time point 1 and at the end of the week study period time point 2.
The mean duration of the test battery was 45 minutes. For the EG, tests were carried out at the end of the 20 art therapy weekly sessions. For CG, they were carried out the same week interval, in which patients were not subjected to any intervention. Sociodemographic questionnaires were administered that included information on age, educational attainment, marital status, and income level.
Questionnaires about medications used, number of previous depressive episodes, and presence of other diseases besides depression were also applied.
Depression was evaluated with the Geriatric Depression Scale GDS Yesavage JA, Brink TL, Rose TL, Lum O, Huang V, Adey M, et al. Development and validation of a geriatric depression screening scale: a preliminary report.
Almeida OP, Almeida SA. The cutoff point for depression is 5. Scores between 1 and 5 are considered subsyndromal depression; scores between 6 and 10 are considered depression; and scores between 11 and 15 are considered severe depression.
Depressive symptoms were also evaluated with the Beck Depression Inventory BDI , 28 Beck AT, Steer RA. Manual for the revised Beck depression inventory.
San Antonio: Psychological Corporation; which consists of 21 questions about how the individual has felt in the preceding week regarding depressive symptoms such as hopelessness, irritability, guilt, or feelings of being punished, as well as physical symptoms such as fatigue, weight loss, and decreased libido.
Each question is scored on a scale of 0 to 3; therefore, the maximum BDI score is The cutoff point for depression is 12, and scores between 1 and 11 are considered subsyndromal depression.
As the GDS is validated for the study of depression in the elderly 26 and the BDI is widely used for adults and it is more comprehensive in several aspects of depression, we also checked for correlation between these scales.
Anxiety was evaluated by the Beck Anxiety Inventory BAI , 29 Manual for the Beck anxiety inventory. which consists of 21 questions about how the individual has felt in the preceding week regarding common anxiety symptoms, such as sweating, tremor, fear, and feelings of distress.
The cutoff point for anxiety is 12, and scores between 1 and 11 are considered subsyndromal anxiety. A cognitive assessment battery was also administered, consisting of the MMSE, 24 the Verbal Fluency Test — animal category, 30 Newcombe F.
Missile wounds of the brain: a study of psychological deficits. Oxford: Oxford University; the Trail Making Test A, 31 Army Individual Test Battery. Manual of directions and scoring. Washington: War Department, Adjutant General's Office; and the Rey Complex Figure Rey CF task. Rey A. Paris: Universitaire de France; In the Verbal Fluency Test — animal category, 30 normal performance was defined as the ability to remembering more than 12 animals for participants with 1 to 7 years of formal schooling or more than 13 animals for participants with 8 years or more of schooling.
The Trail Making Test A 31 was used to evaluate cognitive functions involving sustained attention, cognitive flexibility, executive functions, sequencing ability, and motor speed.
The Rey CF 32 is a visuospatial task that requires visual attention and memory. First, the participant copied a complex drawing while observing it. This first step analyzes visuospatial processing and strategy development.
After 30 minutes, the patient was asked to draw the figure again, without seeing it. This step of the test is known as the Rey Delayed Recall Rey DR task, and was used to assess visual and operational memory.
Art therapy sessions were carried out at the IPq-HCFMUSP workshop facility. EG patients participated in 20 art therapy sessions lasting 90 minutes each, all led by the same art therapist.
Although the art therapy intervention involved three groups of 11 participants each, the workshops had an individual focus, that is, each participant was instructed to work on her own artistic output during the session. The workshops produced a therapeutic context in which nonverbal expression was used to facilitate self-knowledge, self-esteem, and self-acceptance.
The techniques used involved themes that led to reflection on adaptation to difficult life circumstances, such as losses, death, finitude, resentment, solitude, and feelings of impotence.
Relaxation and guided imagery: the art therapist asked patients to disconnect from their daily thoughts and breathe gently. With the aid of a specific song selected for each session, relaxation and guided imagery activities were carried out, usually by inducing the participants to imagine a nature setting of their choice.
Then, the topic for artistic creation during the session was proposed. Artistic output. After the guided imagery activity, the art therapist instructed the participants to work out the topic that had been proposed, using the art supplies available.
Techniques such as painting, drawing, clay modeling, weaving, and collage were used. Once the artworks were completed, each participant was invited to verbally express her reflections and any feelings that surfaced during the activity.
This verbalization step was important for participants to elaborate on what emerged during their production, while the group and the art therapist listened; the art therapist then helped each patient understand her artistic output. The participants took their artworks home at the end of each session.
On average, the relaxation and guided imagery step lasted 7 minutes; the artistic output step lasted 60 minutes; and the verbalization step lasted 15 to 20 minutes. Quantitative data were analyzed in SPSS version 20 for Windows.
The Kolmogorov-Smirnov method was used to test for normality of data distribution. As the assumption of normality was rejected, nonparametric tests were used to evaluate participant scores.
The Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare sociodemographic data, number of depressive episodes, and cognitive and psychiatric variables between the EG and CG. The Wilcoxon test was used to compare differences baseline vs.
follow-up in scale scores for each of the groups EG and CG, separately. Spearman correlation coefficients were calculated to assess potential relationships among changes in the different psychometric instruments, and the correlation between delta GDS and delta BDI was found relevant.
There were no differences in educational attainment, marital status, depression onset after age 60 years, or number of previous depressive episodes. Furthermore, there were no between-group differences in psychiatric or cognitive variables of interest at baseline Table 2.
Table 3 presents a longitudinal analysis of variables in each group. Baseline data time point 1 were compared with data from the end of the study time point 2 for each group. EG participants exhibited improvement in MMSE, GDS, BDI, BAI, and Rey DR scores, i.
CG participants only exhibited improvement in BDI scores. EG participants exhibited a greater reduction delta in GDS, BDI, and BAI scores than controls.
There was no significant difference between EG and CG in terms of the change in cognitive battery scores. None scored 0 in either scale at the end of the experiment. As an additional analysis, we tested for correlation between GDS and BDI. This correlation shows evidences that the two scales corroborate the statistical analysis.
The art therapy intervention for elderly women with stable, pharmacologically treated MDD described in this randomized, single-blind study led to improvement in depression and anxiety symptoms. This was demonstrated both on comparison of the EG versus the CG and by the response rates observed in the EG, ranging from The intervention was a preset program of art therapy workshops consisting of a brief relaxation exercise through guided imagery, followed by artistic output and, finally, sharing of feeling and thoughts with the group and therapist.
The decrease in depressive and anxiety symptoms observed after this intervention is consistent with that observed following other forms of nonpharmacological treatment, such as other types of psychotherapy with a scope similar to that of art therapy.
The themes addressed by this art therapy intervention resemble those dealt with in other psychotherapies known to lead to improvement in depressive symptoms in the elderly, 17 such as interpersonal therapy as it stimulated social interaction in the group, as well as interaction with the therapist when patients shared their feelings and thoughts ; depression management therapy as it enabled reflection on depression-related issues, such as losses, physical disability, and solitude, correcting dysfunctional beliefs ; and life review therapy because past situations were revisited, providing the patient with the opportunity to work out these situations using expressive techniques.
Anxiety scores were reduced at the end of this study, which is in accordance with the therapeutic objective of the sessions. This finding was also reported in other studies of guided imagery.
In the present intervention, guided imagery was used with the aim of helping participants relax, move their thoughts away from worries or unpleasant situations, and bring their attention to the topic of the workshop.
Holmes EA, Mathews A. Mental imagery in emotion and emotional disorders. Clin Psychol Rev. Visualization of positive and pleasant images during guided imagery may also have contributed to decreasing the negative thoughts and feelings of sadness that are characteristic of depression.
These results are similar to those reported in previous studies on guided imagery using projected images. This is possible especially because, during artistic output, emotions and feelings are concretized through art, becoming more active than rational thoughts.
This can promote insight, leading to changes in how a given situation or problem is viewed by the patient; this, in turn, may have contributed to a reduction in anxiety and depressive symptoms. Searching for the meaning of life is a coping strategy during stressful events, which are numerous during old age and are worsened by awareness of the approach and inexorability of death.
Pompili M, Innamorati M, Di Vittorio C, Sher L, Girardi P, Amore M. Sociodemographic and clinical differences between suicide ideators and attempters: a study of mood disordered patients 50 years and older. Suicide Life Threat Behav. In the art therapy intervention used herein, themes such as the finiteness of existence, fear of death and disease, and solitude were addressed nonverbally.
The benefit of this approach is that patients can become aware of these issues without having to tackle them rationally and defensively. Artworks can represent the concretization of emotions, enabling the patient to gain insight into problems that can then be changed, which is the main objective of psychotherapy.
Art therapy can allow the individual to enter a plastic, expressive universe that is different from her daily routine, facilitating new perceptions. Improvement in depressive and anxiety symptoms was also reported in a meta-analysis of art therapy for patients with breast cancer.
To learn more about our treatment programs, contact Bella Monte Recovery Center today by calling Previous Next. View Larger Image. One of these new and modern approaches is art therapy. What Is Art Therapy?
Art therapy may utilize several creative approaches, such as: Drawing Sketching Coloring Scribbling Painting Sculpting Photography In sessions, clients are encouraged to express themselves or their emotions through one of these approaches.
Why Is Art Therapy Effective in the Treatment of Depression? Art therapy may provide incredible benefits, such as: Increasing self-awareness: Depression can make you numb to the world.
Art therapy allows you to bring awareness to this numbness in a way that promotes expression. If you are depressed but unsure what triggered it, art therapy may help you uncover obstacles that limit your ability to heal.
Overall, expressing yourself through art can help you understand more about yourself, especially your thought and emotional processes. Improving mood: Art therapy stimulates the imagination in ways that traditional therapy is not able to.
Art allows people to explore their passions, dreams, and strengths without pressure or judgment from others. Because of this, art therapy is able to improve mood. It helps boost self-esteem and allows individuals to experience a sense of accomplishment, especially after extended periods of depressed mood.
Breaking harmful thought patterns: Art therapy helps break harmful thought patterns that typically occur subconsciously. When a person creates art, they become invested in their art piece, and it can help break patterns of intrusive or otherwise negative thoughts.
Over time and with consistent sessions, an individual may learn to use art as a coping mechanism to distract the mind from harmful thoughts. Preparing for Your First Art Therapy Session Art therapy sessions can take place anywhere at any time. If art therapy sounds like something that you or a loved one may benefit from, here are some tips that may help: Seek out local services that may offer art therapy.
Try recovery and treatment facilities first, as they are likely to offer opportunities for creative expression as complementary to traditional therapeutic interventions. You will also want to make sure that your art therapy sessions are led by a trained mental health professional.
Seek out specialized art therapy sessions or groups. If you find that there is more than one art therapy program to choose from, try to look for a program that specializes in the condition you are looking to treat.
For example, there may be specific sessions for those that struggle with depression and anxiety. Be prepared for self-discovery.
Treafment is normal to feel bored, sad, and unsatisfied with Potassium and weight management. However, when these feelings start to treatmet for days, weeks, or anri-depressant, it may signify that Nutrient-dense eating is beginning Aw develop. Depression Memory boosting techniques a chronic mental illness that negatively affects how people think, act, and behave. If left untreated, symptoms can become so severe that even the simplest tasks can appear daunting. The most popular treatment methods recommended for those struggling with mood disorders are psychotherapy and medication, although new, evidence-based therapies are becoming more readily available. Art therapy is a treatment modality that encourages creative expression to enhance mental health or treat psychological disorders.
0 thoughts on “Art therapy as an anti-depressant treatment”