Seeking to illustrate the nuances of physical touch in PT practice, Brandon Ness, DPT program faculty member and artist, created an image to inspire discussion among his students about trust and healing. His account of that process—creating and refining the image, going through a Visible Thinking exercise with his students—shows how art can inspire fresh critical thinking.
This article and the photos that accompany it speak volumes about the lives and perspectives of the photographers presented: SCI patients at the Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center in Los Angeles.
Babs McDonald describes her journey toward recovery from an ischemic stroke through painting and sketching. Through numerous examples of her artwork, she details her experiences pushing through impairment to create images chronicling her life. Based on her success, she advocates for the use of fine art techniques to foster upper limb movement in stroke survivors. Creating her art, she says, has taught her that “there are no failures in my recovery, only new challenges.”
As today’s healthcare professionals struggle to address the challenges of chronic-pain management, Debra Gorman-Badar argues that current multidisciplinary programs are missing a crucial component: an updated conception of patient autonomy. She details how expressive therapies help patients integrate their chronic-pain experiences into their lives and promote healing self-knowledge—as Frida Kahlo did through her remarkable paintings.
This poignant case study, featuring impressive art created by a military veteran with traumatic brain injury and comorbidities, expresses the power of Art Therapy to heal profound physical and psychological wounds. “The veteran’s art increased his self-awareness while informing the clinical team of his ongoing experience,” Gayla Elliott notes. His art and his words make a compelling case for adding art to the rehabilitation process.
In this powerful reflection, Siobhan Conaty shows how art history as a health humanities discipline can provide two uniquely different (yet equally important) teaching methods for students reckoning with a health crisis. One negative (a critical reading of graphic pandemic images) and one positive (looking to art as a powerful healing instrument), each serves an important purpose. Conaty details the positive approach she recently chose for her students — emphasizing art as a healing force.
Sue Klappa, PT, PhD, and colleagues discuss how Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) students created visual art projects to gain a deeper understanding of how physical therapy transforms society and improves quality of life for patients.
Exploring the lives and careers of 12 extraordinary war photographers, Anthony Feinstein, PhD, underscores the grave danger these visual historians encounter when covering conflict and raises our awareness of the individuals behind the camera, who risk their lives to bear witness to violence and suffering.
Bill Forester reflects on re-discovering himself after suffering a massive hemorrhagic stroke. Realizing that he would not be returning to work, Bill and his family devoted their time to his rehabilitation, embarking on an ambitious path of trial and error and the ultimate discovery of painting as a medium for rehabilitation.
Artist Ted Meyer shares his story of how he turns trauma into art that transforms the way patients and care providers view physical scars.
In this visual arts piece, Dr. Michael Borich’s image of the structural architecture of brain fiber pathways is more than a compelling visual display of a diffusion tensor imaging technique. He uses data visualization to underscore the importance of understanding and appreciating visual design as we seek to adequately try to portray and convey complex analyses and multi-dimensional information.
Visual arts submissions may be submitted in several different genres, including photos, videos, original painting or artwork. For example, photo or video submissions may include
Seeking to illustrate the nuances of physical touch in PT practice, Brandon Ness, DPT program faculty member and artist, created an image to inspire discussion among his students about trust and healing. His account of that process—creating and refining the image, going through a Visible Thinking exercise with his students—shows how art can inspire fresh critical thinking.
This article and the photos that accompany it speak volumes about the lives and perspectives of the photographers presented: SCI patients at the Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center in Los Angeles.
Babs McDonald describes her journey toward recovery from an ischemic stroke through painting and sketching. Through numerous examples of her artwork, she details her experiences pushing through impairment to create images chronicling her life. Based on her success, she advocates for the use of fine art techniques to foster upper limb movement in stroke survivors. Creating her art, she says, has taught her that “there are no failures in my recovery, only new challenges.”
As today’s healthcare professionals struggle to address the challenges of chronic-pain management, Debra Gorman-Badar argues that current multidisciplinary programs are missing a crucial component: an updated conception of patient autonomy. She details how expressive therapies help patients integrate their chronic-pain experiences into their lives and promote healing self-knowledge—as Frida Kahlo did through her remarkable paintings.
This poignant case study, featuring impressive art created by a military veteran with traumatic brain injury and comorbidities, expresses the power of Art Therapy to heal profound physical and psychological wounds. “The veteran’s art increased his self-awareness while informing the clinical team of his ongoing experience,” Gayla Elliott notes. His art and his words make a compelling case for adding art to the rehabilitation process.
In this powerful reflection, Siobhan Conaty shows how art history as a health humanities discipline can provide two uniquely different (yet equally important) teaching methods for students reckoning with a health crisis. One negative (a critical reading of graphic pandemic images) and one positive (looking to art as a powerful healing instrument), each serves an important purpose. Conaty details the positive approach she recently chose for her students — emphasizing art as a healing force.