Integrating arts into physiotherapy to ease strain on healthcare system

Hong Kong’s healthcare system is overloaded, with long waiting times for patients, and overworked healthcare professionals. In view of this, art practitioners have come up with creative ways to reduce their workload, marrying arts and physiotherapy, to ease the strain on the healthcare system.

Seeing potential in the body

Working in community outreach for art and culture programmes, Tiffany and John create “Being – Creative Arts Facilitation in Physiotherapy”, one of the Incubatees of Impact Innovation Lab. Once, they were responsible for coordinating a group activity for people with cognitive disabilities, working with allied health professionals to bring arts into regular exercises. “The positive feedback from patients and community centres prompted us to take a step forward.” Then, they collaborated with the Physiotherapy programme of Saint Francis University (formerly Caritas Institute of Higher Education) for an eight-week study on “static and dynamic balance”, which showed that dance can improve balance. Research worldwide also suggests that arts can enhance physical functions. “If we can help patients with mild conditions, medical staff can focus on urgent cases, thus cross-boundary collaboration can lift strain on our healthcare system.” 

Drawing circles and lines to heal the body and mind 

They established the social enterprise Booom Creative, with their first creative physiotherapy programme targeting elderly with cognitive disabilities. John mentioned one of the drawing exercises as an example: “We ask the elderly to draw straight lines and perfect curves, while paying attention to their fingers, wrists and arms’ movements. The lack of awareness towards their body parts and their usage over time lead to inflexibility and deterioration.” For other exercises, carers and elders join hands to draw a large circle, offering a sense of support and companionship to the elderly.

Holistic rehabilitation that cares the carers 

Tiffany added that they try to incorporate creative elements into common physiotherapy exercises, so that they are less repetitive, and patients will be more motivated to keep going. Being also promotes group therapy, in which participants get to socialise, cheer and keep each other company. “We hope to see positive changes in participants not just physically, but also psychologically.” Tiffany’s vision of holistic rehabilitation also includes carers. “They have the opportunity to interact with other carers during the process, witnessing gradual improvement in patients could be empowering to them.”

Lower cost and longer duration for group therapy

While existing physiotherapy services are mainly one-on-one, each session is relatively short and expensive. Being’s design allows multiple patients to be treated simultaneously, sharing the cost to alleviate financial burden. “Our target group is those who need rehabilitation treatment but with mild conditions, which public hospitals have no room for, so they need to seek private services.” Tiffany stressed that traditional physiotherapy is effective, but Being’s creative rehabilitation project could provide new options on top of that for both patients and rehabilitation organisations.

Joining forces with healthcare students for new treatment approaches 

Creative rehabilitation can be applied to various conditions other than cognitive disorders. “We have been working with physiotherapy teams for different possibilities, in an attempt to help people with Parkinson’s disease, stroke and sarcopenia, reaching out to related rehabilitation centres.” They also hope that the project will attract healthcare students, encouraging them to think outside the box, and joining forces to discover new approaches for the betterment of all.