Creating helps to improve the quality of life for those with illness

In the study of 'The Connection Between Art, Healing and Public Health'  it was  discovered that craft-making could potentially offer some help to those with debilitating illnesses that included Alzheimer, and dementia. The study showed that patients with these illnesses experienced improved medical outcomes. It was also noticed that craft-making helped to lessen psychiatric symptoms and consequently enhance patients' pleasure and the social behaviour of the patients.

Another therapeutic benefit of crafts making is that it can help to improve the smooth coordination and fine motor skills of the limbs particularly the fingers of the hand. This could be helpful to children or people with medical conditions that affect the coordination of the limb particularly fingers.  For instance, making use of scissors to cut can help improve coordination and fine motor skills of the hands, drawing and dot lines, and many other activities that can help improve the coordination of muscle groups during crafting making.

Recreational craft making can offer some help in dealing with pain in the body. This is because, through craft-making, we can shift our minds from what hurts, focusing on creativity. This would help to decrease the sensitivity of our body to pain as we shift our focus and attention to what does not hurt.

Recreational craft making can offer some help in dealing with pain in the body. This is because, through craft-making, we can shift our minds from what hurts, focusing on creativity. This would help to decrease the sensitivity of our body to pain as we shift our focus and attention to what does not hurt.

 

What is craft-making?

Crafting is the art of making handmade items or decorative materials with the use of the hand. It usually involves the execution of smooth hand-on skills with dexterity and precision. Craft-making has been getting popular in recent times partly because of the recreational purpose. Many people are into craft making because of recreation as it is a productive art to engage in during recreation. For some, it is for business since it is an art. As money can be made through the sales of neatly made crafts and thus it represents a significant source of income for people who engage it.

But much of the focus and attention of people have been on the recreational purpose and business perspective to crafting. There has been little focus on the therapeutic effect of crafting.

Craft making has some potential therapeutic effect and could be prescribed by Physicians and occupational therapists to improve bodily functions. Craft making is beneficial to everyone Irrespective of age whether young or old, sex whether male or female. Everyone stands to gain from the therapeutic effect of craft making even healthy ones.

In a recent study released by the  American Journal of Public Health titled 'The Connection Between Art, Healing and Public Health'  it was discovered that people who engaged in any activity related to crafting experienced less stress compared to people who did not. It possible because of the shift in attention from the activities that increase stress to the recreational effect of craft making. So crafting could be recommended to therapeutically deal with stress.