Say the word “pharmacy” and you might think of pill bottles and long lines. But what if your prescription was a dance class or a musical performance?
Art Pharmacy is a program that is now partnering with Massachusetts health care providers, hospitals, clinics and health plans. Here’s how it works: a health care provider writes a prescription for a patient and a “care navigator” learns more about the patient to recommend four to five activities. Then, the patient chooses which activity to participate in, can attend that activity up to 12 times in a year, and is able to bring a friend.
The Massachusetts Culture Council is working with Art Pharmacy and already has 350 arts organizations in the network that are going through training and onboarding, according to Executive Director Michael Bobbitt.
“The hope in the future with that is that this will reduce health care costs and doctor’s visits, and that people will see that arts and culture are deeply integral to people’s whole self-awareness and health,” Bobbitt said.
Prior to the rollout, there was a three-year Art Pharmacy pilot program that partnered with Urbanity, a dance studio in the South End. It’s one example of what an art prescription can look like.
Betsi Graves, Urbanity’s Founder and Director, teaches a dance class for people with Parkinson’s.
“When you customize a curriculum to combat the specific challenges of a given disease. It’s amazing how it then can become medicine to actually heal a specific symptom,” Graves said.
Dr. Teresa Baker, a physical therapist at Boston University’s Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, said patients love the classes she prescribes, including dance with Parkinson’s.
“It almost makes me think, where’s this been for so long?” she asked.
Carol, who has Parkinson’s and attends the class regularly said it allows her joints to loosen up and she feels more energized.
“It gives us moments of shared time that we can understand each other’s experiences and challenges, and feel like you’re not alone with this illness,” she said.