Art for Medicine:
Art as a Path of Self Discovery & Communication – Soroptimist Kuwait conducted training seminars to healthcare providers in different fields to increase their wellbeing (mental, physical, and emotional). In this project, the nurses and physicians in the Mubarak Hospital Pediatric Program were trained to understand alternative wellness methods (visual language). Kuwait is a melting pot.
There are different nationalities in healthcare facilities and minimal training is done to develop communication methods in rehabilitation phases. One of the emerging professions in Kuwait in Arts in Medicine. It is multidisciplinary field dedicated to transforming health and the healthcare experience through the arts. The field integrates literary, performing, and visual arts and design into a variety of healthcare and community settings for therapeutic, educational, and expressive purposes. The arts are now being used within healthcare institutions worldwide.
The international arts in medicine movement represents a rediscovery of the links between body, mind and spirit and of the unity between the creative and medical arts. It recognizes and advocates the role of the imagination and creativity in developing and maintaining health. Specific applications may include workshops for health maintenance for healthcare givers or other healthy or non-hospitalized participants, bringing the arts into the hospital environment through exhibitions and/or performances, providing arts activities and workshops for patients, family members and staff, and artists facilitating creativity with patients on an individual basis.
Physical Wellbeing for Women
Carrying a child and giving birth puts tremendous strain on the pelvic floor and the abdominal muscles. Did you know that in many European countries, a physical therapist is present in the room when a woman gives birth AND she has access to her physical therapist as a normal part of recovery? The Middle Eastern birth culture have not evolved to provide such services for women.
As part of our wellbeing series, Dr. Nowall Alsayegh (Soroptimist Sister) provides physical therapy training for women in multiple settings. These core body strength exercises can be very difficult to perform and should be learned with the help of an appropriately trained physical therapist, chiropractor, certified athletic trainer, exercise physiologist, physiatrist, or another type of spine specialist or exercise instructor.