Ceiling Art

Look up at the ceiling of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and you will likely be surprised at the bright tiles you see.

The ceiling art, splashed with blues, yellows and reds, were painted by community members with the help of an artist.

These decorative ceiling tiles give bored patients a source of entertainment and joy. Patients often have to lie in hospital beds for hours. Lying still for too long can be stressful and monotonous.

United Hospital in St. Paul Minnesota is another hospital using ceiling art. Its ceiling art made United the first Minnesota hospital to employ a "therapeutic environmental art."

Large pictures made of a special plastic are back-lit to illuminate a brightly-colored natural setting. The tranquil scenes, which appear on the ceiling above radiation therapy machines, help cancer patients think about something other than their disease.

Music Therapy

It's not just music to your ears, but music to your body. University Hospitals of Cleveland uses a music therapy program at their Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital to treat children's illnesses or disabilities physiologically and psychosocially.

As part of their comprehensive treatment, the Children's Hospital uses music as a...

• Medium of communication
• Strategy for refocusing during painful or long procedures
• Source of emotional support.

The hospital sites research as their reason for the music therapy. Music therapy...

• effects heart rate, blood pressure, respiration rate, cardiac output, muscle tone, pupillary responses, skin responses and the immune system among other systems

Slower music can lower anxiety, pain, tension and stress levels. This leads to less use of anesthetics and pain medication and shorter recovery periods.

On the other hand, stimulative music can be a source of motivation and positive reinforcement during physical therapy and rehabilitation.

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