Opening minds through art

Since occupational therapy began in the late 19th-century, the use of arts and crafts has been a foundational tool for engaging patients with both physical and mental illnesses. After World War II, a reductionist movement shifted occupational therapy interventions away from crafts and toward more physically oriented rehabilitation interventions designed to help veterans return to their communities. However, in recent years, evidence has re-emerged to support the use of arts-based approaches for OT interventions as a means of practitioners gaining valuable data about their patients while supporting functional ADLs (Leenerts et al., 2016). As part of this movement, during the last 2 years we have implemented an innovative, evidence-based arts-based program called Opening Minds through Art (OMA), with our patients in an eating disorders clinic. This article shares the background of OMA, which has traditionally been used in long-term care settings with residents affected by dementia and reflects on our initial clinical experiences with younger patients.