01 Jul 2010
For leukaemia patients recovering from a transplant to grow healthy blood cells, the sterile, bare rooms they have to recuperate in are depressing at best.
Everything in these isolation rooms has to withstand rigorous chemical cleaning. Personal items are restricted to specified toiletries, such as unopened toothpaste and a soft-headed toothbrush, and clean pyjamas. Common items of comfort, such as a pillow, food or flowers, cannot be brought as they may harbour germs. Only items that can be sterilised are allowed. Visitors too have to undergo rigorous hygiene procedures.
Being confined and cut off from ordinary life and loved ones during this time can be draining for patients, and many feel fearful and depressed.
Realising that the emotional well being of patients is just as important, Professor Shaun McCann, Haematologist, St James’s Hospital, Ireland, set up a pilot project that gave the isolation rooms at the hospital a new view.
Called the Open Window project, patients select the type of image or video streams they want to see through a virtual window. Much like selecting a TV channel, images are called up, slowly rotating to create a soothing experience.
Unappealing images are simply deleted from the selection.
Sitting in bed, stem cell transplant patients no longer look at a whitewashed wall. Instead, they are able to pick a view of their liking – distant holiday destinations, the world’s most recognisable artworks, landscapes, pictures or real-time videos of their own loved ones – and have the images projected onto a wall.
“I came up with the project for our transplant patients, who were in isolation without a view of the outside world,” said Prof McCann, who established stem cell transplantation at St James’s Hospital.
He is the past Director of the national programme, and current Professor of Academic Medicine and Director of Teaching and Learning (Undergraduate) at the School of Medicine, Trinity College, Universityn of Dublin, Ireland. He visited Singapore General Hospital to learn how art therapy is used in local hospital settings.
Healing aid
According to Prof McCann, this project does not aim to cure patients, but to make their situation more bearable.
This hypothesis was tested using data from the patients who took part in the pilot. The findings showed promise, said Prof McCann.
Patients welcomed the change to their surroundings, which does not require particular concentration or attention to enjoy. Another benefit is that the images encouraged patients to talk to others.
“Many patients said that looking at the artworks, they were able to have new conversations with nurses about topics other than diarrhoea and not having hair,” said Prof McCann. “This is what we want them to do, rather than focus exclusively on their illness every time we see them.”
“One patient told us it’s like visiting an art gallery. [Like gallery visitors] our patients look through all the works, then go back to the ones they like,” said Prof McCann. Major museums like the Smithsonian in US have also expressed interest in featuring the artworks in the project, something that may well happen in the future.
Encouraged by its success at St James’s Hospital, Prof McCann plans to introduce this concept of art intervention to other hospitals outside of Ireland.
He believes that it can be used in any country in the world.
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