Art therapy in a medical environment encounters patients with various diseases. In particular, art therapy in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine involves encountering patients with unexpected physical difficulties because activities are performed with patients with brain injuries. Among them, I will try to solve the curiosity about the unilateral neglect syndrome and talk about the art therapy approach.
# unilateral neglect syndrome[unilateral neglect syndrome]
It is said that unilateral neglect is one of the symptoms that occur in stroke patients or traumatic brain injury patients who have suffered brain damage due to an accident. Although hemiplegia rarely occurs in patients with left brain injury, it is more common in patients with right brain injury, and patients with hemiplegia do not recognize spaces, objects, and stimuli on the opposite side of the injured side.
It can be explained that ‘it does not exist’ because it does not recognize existence, and ‘don’t care’ because it does not feel it. Ignore occurs in the left area.
The figure below shows the visual pathways of a normal person and the visual pathways when the left hemiplegia appears due to a right brain injury. In general, objects on the left are transmitted to the right brain and objects on the right are transferred to the left brain. As you can see in the drawing of the clock, we can see that the left side override occurs and the numbers on the clock are biased to the right.
▲ (Left) Visual path of the unilateral disregard patient (Right) Drawing the left unilateral disregard patient’s clock
# Understanding the patient with unilateral neglect
Hemi-ignorance patients suffer from sensory loss on the damaged side, which causes problems in their daily life because they do not recognize the paralyzed side.
Difficulty in daily life, such as continuing to wear clothes with only the non-injured side of the body, shaving only one beard, or eating only food from one side of the plate It does not recognize even if it has been touched, and when moving from place to place, it does not recognize the entire space, so it is in a dangerous situation such as bumping into a wall.
Also, in patients with unilateral neglect, the center of the body is biased to one side due to neglect. It can be seen that the center of everything, not just the body, is biased. The range of perceptible visual field may vary from patient to patient, but when a certain distance is bisected, the bisector point is biased in one direction than the actual central point. Therefore, it is necessary to first understand how much the patient’s center is deviated from the center, and it is important to expand the field of view from there.
▲ Finding the central point of the unilateral neglect patient
# Art therapy for patients with unilateral neglect
▲ Art therapy process for spatial awareness
Art therapy for patients with unilateral neglect aims to help them expand their field of vision while recognizing the space on the neglected side through art activities, and to stimulate curiosity using sensory and visual media to help them focus on the activity.
It is also important for patients to know that they have unilateral neglect, and in the case of left-sided neglect, it is better to induce the patient to feel that there is a space they cannot see using tactile sense rather than asking or instructing the patient to go further to the left. effective.
It is said that blind people ‘hear as if they see sound.’ It is a positive role of art therapy to use media that can stimulate various senses in art therapy and to be able to see the invisible area with the eyes of the senses by knowing the senses of softness, roughness, bumpiness, hardiness, warmth, and coldness. it can be said
Various media can be selected, and visual and tactile art activity training using them expands the possibility of overcoming unilateral ignorance while providing the pleasure of rehabilitation to patients with unilateral ignorance. It is hoped that art therapy for patients with unilateral neglect as well as other brain injury patients will be actively performed within the rehabilitation treatment area.
writing. Soo-kyung Eo
Doctor of Clinical Art Therapy, Art Therapy Training Specialist, CEO of EO Psychological Counseling Education Development Center. He is a standing director and academic member of the Korean Society for Convergence Art Psychological Counseling, is a lecturer at Seoul National University, Kyunghee University, and the College of Tea Science, and has co-authored 『Colorful Mind Art Therapy Workbook』 and 『Children Counseling Theory』.