For the past six weeks, a special dance therapy camp has been taking place at New Image Dance Studio in Kendall.

Barbara Delgado has been running the studio for 12 years. While there are many trophies and medals on display, this group of students has been the most rewarding.

Delgado says “even though they might not have the same capability as my competition studio, the want and the passion for dance has been incredible.”

Delgado is certified in autism movement therapy and saw a need for teaching them a creative form of communication.

“A lot of children with autism have that problem of having to express and convey emotion, and through dance we’re teaching them how to tap into those emotions.”

Read more here:  http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/Autism-Dance-Camp-126141368.html

1. Studying the arts makes medical students into better doctors.

2. The arts have therapeutic benefits.

3. The arts can help prevent disease.

4. The arts can improve the patient experience.

5. The arts can promote physician well-being.

Read more here:  http://www.minnesotamedicine.com/CurrentIssue/WhyWeNeedtheArtsinMedicine.aspx

Music therapy means many different things to many different people, but common threads among definitions include the importance of music, relationships, developing clients’ or patients’ potentials and improving the quality of their lives.

To me music therapy uses music prescriptively to provide opportunities for individuals to establish or strengthen connections, achieve transformations, build and expand upon foundations and reach aspirations. An individual may connect with the music, the environment, the therapist and/or peers, other clients and family members. Music therapy may help someone move from tears to laughter; from aggressiveness, destructiveness or self-stimulatory responses to “socially appropriate behavior”; and from isolation to inclusion, participation and cooperation. The experience may build upon musical and other strengths innate in some individuals and provide opportunities for success. The music therapist systematically designs music interventions to help people reach their goals and potentials in nonmusical and musical domains and to improve the quality of their lives.

Read more here:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ronna-kaplan-ma/music-therapy_b_869439.html?

Charles McGrath of the New York Times writes about conceptual artist, Alexander Melamid’s latest project that examines Art and Healing with distinctive playfulness, irony.  His new clinic called the Art Healing Ministry is “a storefront clinic at 98 Thompson Street in SoHo, where people can come in by appointment and be treated, by means of exposure to fine art, for a variety of physical and psychological ailments.”

“The question is whether I will step over and become real,” Mr. Melamid said. “Whether I will stop being an artist or a conceptualist and become a real healer. That’s what I want to do. I know I’ll never do it, but that’s what I want to do.”

Read more here:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/arts/design/alexander-melamids-art-healing-ministry-in-soho.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2&sq=art%20and%20health&st=cse&scp=40&adxnnlx=1307548816-TjfoOy4dfg80JTM0S%20WQCA

The Los Angeles Tmes reports on the use of visual arts to help treat and understand migraines:

Increasingly, instead of struggling to explain with words, people with these illnesses are producing art that does a better job.

The artists begin to feel less isolated and alone. Their doctors get a better understanding of the symptoms they are trying to treat. And researchers gain new insights into how some neurological diseases affect the brain.

Read more here:  http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-diseases-art-migraines-20110523,0,4140375.story

The Bigioni family is among the parents and children in York Region who have discovered the benefits of art therapy and art classes for children with special needs.

“People are becoming more aware of art therapy, what it can do and how powerful it is,” said Janice LeBlanc, an art therapist with a private practice in Bradford. Her clients come from Newmarket, Bradford and Innisfil and she also leads an art therapy group in Markham.

Read more here:  http://www.yorkregion.com/news/article/1012624–growing-demand-for-art-therapy

The Society for the Arts in Healthcare, the University of Florida Centre for the Arts in Healthcare and the Rwanda Red Cross convened for a two day long East-Central Africa Arts & Health Forum, held on May 13th to 14th, 2011.

The forum brought together several participants from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and the United States.

Through integrating the Arts in Healthcare, presenters suggested the most effective ways to enhance individual and community health, improve health literacy, and provide new vocational skills to people whose lives are affected by illness and disability.

Read more here:  http://allafrica.com/stories/201105161394.html