Art programs in hospitals

Healers are discovering that art, music, dance and
poetry have profound healing effects. Doctors, nurses, and therapists are now
working with artists and musicians to heal people of all ages with many
conditions including cancer and AIDS. Healers have found that art and music,
combined with traditional medicine are powerful tools.

Hospitals all over the world are incorporating
music and art into patient care. The most sophisticated university medical
centers are now creating art in medicine programs which invite artists and
musicians to work with patients and literally change the hospital environment.
These programs take the artists and musicians into the patient's room have the
artists perform in atrium spaces. The patients watch and experience the
exhilaration of a symphony or the beauty of an exhibition or they paint, play music,
or dance themselves with the artists. Art and music crack the sterile space of
fear the patients live in and they open it to the joys of the human spirit. The
spirit freed then helps the body heal. Replacing fear with hope is the essence
of modern mind body medicine.