‘Art Rx’ Museum Tours Relieve Chronic Pain

By Pat Anson, Editor

A small pilot study by researchers at the University of California, Davis has uncovered a novel way of temporarily relieving chronic pain: Visit an art museum.

The Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento hosted a series of “Art Rx” private tours for 56 patients with chronic pain. The one-hour tours were designed not to be physically challenging and to encourage participants to talk with each other about the artwork they were seeing --- not just silently view it.

Patients were surveyed about their pain before and immediately after the docent-led tour, as well as three weeks later.

The study findings, published in the journal Pain Medicine, found that over 57 percent of the patients reported a decrease in their pain levels during the tour.

“So we get there, and I’m already in pain, but truly we were having this discussion and I just wasn’t thinking about it. I was having a good time,” one patient said.

“(Art Rx) took my mind elsewhere,” said another. “Physically I still have pain, but I feel good mentally, and I think part of my pain lessens when I feel good mentally.”

CROCKER ART MUSEUM

For some, the pain relief lasted for weeks. Several patients noted that the tours made them more aware of how their pain made them socially and emotionally isolated, so they took steps to increase their social interaction. Some met socially with Art Rx participants they met during the tours or joined an art-based community group.

“If you’re involved and doing things with people, you’re not shut in; you’re not focused on the pain,” one participant said.

“If anything it drives home for me how important it was to make sure that I get out," said another. "In a way, it should be an aspect of my health regime.”

“(Participants) found Art Rx to be, among other things, inclusive, validating, and socially engaging. These qualities stood in stark contrast to the isolating nature of chronic pain described in their personal histories and the negative encounters many of them had with the health care system,” wrote lead author Ian Koebner, PhD, a professor at the School of Medicine, University of California, Davis.

“Socially based interventions for individuals with chronic pain supported by health care organizations, such as Art Rx, may help to mitigate not only the experience of isolation, but also the distressing associations that many individuals with chronic pain have with the health care system.”  

The UC Davis findings are similar to those reported recently in a large 10-year study of over 2,600 healthy older adults in England. Researchers found that participants who attended museums, concerts, art galleries and other cultural activities were significantly less likely to develop chronic pain as they grew older.

The "Art Rx" tours at the Crocker Art Museum began in 2014 and are held every other month at no cost to the public. For more information, click here.

Do Cultural Activities Reduce Risk of Chronic Pain?

By Pat Anson, Editor

Lose weight and get regular exercise are two health tips we’ve all heard before. But has anyone told you that going to a museum or concert could reduce your risk of developing chronic pain?

It’s true, according to a novel study published in the Journal of Pain.

Researchers looked at data from a 10-year study that tracked the progression of pain in over 2,600 older adults living in England. None of the participants suffered from chronic pain at the start of the study, but after ten years over 42 percent had experienced moderate to severe chronic pain.

Women (60%) were more likely to report chronic pain, along with those who lived alone, had less education, less wealth, slept poorly or were depressed. No surprise there, as many studies have found those conditions are often associated with chronic pain.

Researchers also wanted to know how often people exercised or participated in social events, such as community groups (political parties, trade unions or sports clubs) or cultural activities (visiting museums, art galleries or concerts).

Interestingly, moderate physical exercise appeared to have no effect on the incidence of chronic pain, but regular vigorous activity such as stretching and endurance training reduced the risk of developing pain, especially when it was combined with cultural activities.

“This study also found evidence that psychosocial factors may be protective against the development of chronic pain, in particular engagement in cultural activities such as going to museums, art galleries, exhibitions, concerts, the theatre or the opera,” wrote lead author Daisy Fancourt, PhD, a senior research associate at University College London. "It is notable that the odds ratios for cultural engagement were directly comparable with those of vigorous physical activity, suggesting a reduction of 25-26% in risk of chronic pain incidence."

Fancourt and her colleagues believe that going to a museum or concert provides not only gentle physical activity, but psychological benefits that come from social engagement and having positive cultural experiences.

“Notably, these positive psychological benefits have not been found consistently for community group membership, which could explain the differences in association with chronic pain found in this study. Indeed, it is notable that for participants who experienced widespread pain, only psychosocial factors, not physical factors, were found to be risk-reducing,” said Fancourt.

The study was observational in nature and does not prove that cultural experiences can prevent chronic pain. But unlike dieting and exercise, it does suggest an alternate way to lower the risk of chronic pain that most people would find enjoyable.  And maybe that's the most important lesson.

"This study is the first to explore simultaneously potential physical and psychosocial protective factors for the development of chronic pain in older adults. Our results demonstrate that both vigorous weekly activity and regular cultural engagement appear to reduce risk of incident chronic moderate-severe pain," the researchers concluded.

Obese Adults More Likely to Have Chronic Pain

Another way to reduce your risk of chronic pain is to maintain a healthy weight, according to a recent Washington State University study. Researchers there looked at data from 9 large studies conducted in different countries to calculate the odds of chronic pain among adults with an overweight body mass index (BMI).

They found that adults with a BMI of 25 or more, which is considered overweight or obese, were 14 to 71 percent more likely to suffer from chronic pain than those with a BMI below 25.

“Previous studies have shown that weight gain often precedes the development of chronic pain by many years, so I think our job as medical providers is to educate our patients early on and say, ‘You have a high BMI, your risk of one day developing a chronic pain condition, in addition to heart disease, is much higher,’” says Teresa Bigand, a doctoral student in the WSU College of Nursing.

“I think we need to do a better job of educating overweight people about their risk of potentially developing a chronic pain condition.”

More than 69 percent of the U.S. population and 1.9 billion people worldwide are overweight. For those who are already overweight and suffering from a chronic pain, Bigand says it’s not too late to take action. Research shows people who lose the largest amount of weight have the largest drop in their pain intensity.

“Essentially, weight loss is the best thing to do, however some patients aren’t quite ready for that,” Bigand said. “Patients with the highest and most severe levels of pain intensity struggle the most to lose weight. In those cases, we have to think about how we can help patients get their other symptoms under control that might be exacerbating the pain before we can start thinking about treating their overweight or obese status.”

A recent University of Michigan study, published in The Journal of Pain, found that obese participants who lost at least 10 percent of their body weight had less overall body pain.

“It’s been known for some time that people who are obese tend to have higher levels of pain, generally speaking,” says Andrew Schrepf, PhD, a research investigator at Michigan Medicine’s Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center. “But the assumption has always been the pain is going to be in the knees, hips and lower back — parts of the body that are weight-bearing.”

Schrepf and his colleagues found that losing weight not only lowered pain levels in the knees and hips, but in unexpected areas such as the abdomen, arm, chest and jaw. Study participants who could reach the goal of losing 10% of their weight also reported better mental health, improved cognition and more energy. Men in particular showed improvements in their energy levels.