Recreational therapy for the patient’s quality of life.
“Recreational therapy fulfils the needs of children with serious and chronic conditions and gives them the attention they deserve. It’s an experience that affects their quality of life, that pushes their disease into the background, bringing the child in them out again, arming them with a chance to be independent, to socialise and learn again. It can have beneficial effects on the body, to such an extent that it creates improved tolerance and a more effective response to treatments.”
Momcilo Jankovic (Supervisor of the Children’s Haematology Day Hospital at San Gerardo Hospital in Monza, medical director of Dynamo Camp and member of the BoD of the Foundation’s Scientific Committee)
According to the definition by the WHO (World Health Organisation), “health” means “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being”.
The “overall” care of the patient, especially of a child with cancer, should therefore incorporate medical interventions and healthcare, psychosocial and educational services, so that the disease event, and everything stemming from it, can be experienced as a defined period in one’s life. A difficult period, but a temporary one, which must not make the little one lose their desire to play, laugh, grow and learn.
Our method – ceramic therapy to be precise – works in this way. On the one hand, it acts on the “healthy” part of the child, to stop the disease from impeding development; on the other, it becomes concrete therapeutic support.
Besides the magical experience of handling clay, we offer children and teens real projects that are set to become little works of group art, to be displayed in the public spaces inside and outside the hospital.
The effects of our method are therefore amplified, offering the young patients an important pathway for growth, showcasing and recognising their skills and helping them look to the world outside the hospital and to the future in their day-to-day lives.
The value of complementary therapies and the benefits these bring for the patient are currently not yet recognised as an integral part of the recovery process in Italy.
For this reason, to demonstrate the effectiveness of recreational therapy in supporting drug-based medical treatment, a Scientific Committee was set up in 2016 which enabled us to scientifically recognise it, certifying and consolidating its validity.