Art therapy, anxiety and asthma

Children with asthma can often also suffer from anxiety; something that tends to make their condition worse. Anya Beebe, an art therapist at the National Jewish Health in Denver led a study into whether art therapy could help children with asthma feel less anxious. The study involved 22 children between the ages of 7 and 14 with persistent asthma. 11 of them received art therapy and the rest received 'care as usual.'The children were tested using several standardized measures for coping skills, anxiety, worry, self-concept, and quality of life before the first therapy session, at the end of the last session and six months later. At the end of seven weeks, the art therapy group had lower anxiety and higher quality-of-life and self-concept scores than the group that didn't have art therapy. The improvements persisted, although they were not as pronounced, six months later.

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http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE64K5MZ20100521?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews