Effectiveness of Expressive Therapies in Sleep Disorders in Elderly Hyperfrequent of Primary Health Care

Background: Sleep disorders have multifactorial causes affecting 25 to 30%of the adult population, which can consist of primary or secondary conditions, representing a serious risk to public health. They are risk factors for the elderly population, estimating that 50% of this age group have symptoms related to sleep. Objectives: to verify the efficacy of expressive therapies (ET) in sleep disorders in hyperfrequent elderly (HE) of Primary Health Care (PHC). Methods: Quasi-experimental study, with 69 elderly people assisted at PHC in a metropolitan region of the Midwest, divided into two groups: intervention (hyperfrequent elderly) and control (non-hyperfrequent). The sleep questionnaires were used: Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI), Epworth sleepiness scale (ESE), Insomnia severity index (ISI) and STOP-Bang (SB), in addition to the investigation of sociodemographic and anthropometric variables. and related to health services. For data analysis, chi-square tests, multivariate analysis of variance and Wilks’ Lambda test were used, considering p ≤ 0.05. Results: The intervention group (IG) showed a decrease in the scores of PSQI (p = 0.003), ESE (p = 0.006), ISI (p <0.001), SB (p = 0.002) with significant differences between groups. Conclusions: Expressive therapies were effective in hyperfrequent elderly, mitigating sleep disorders. Thus, by reducing sleep disorders in the group of hyperfrequent elderly people using non-pharmacological intervention in PHC, it is possible to improve sleep quality and, consequently, decrease the use of health services, reducing financial costs for the public health system.

EXPRESSIVE THERAPIES CONTINUUM-INFORMED EVALUATION OF THREE RESOURCE-ORIENTED RECEPTIVE AND ACTIVE MUSIC THERAPY TECHNIQUES IN CANCER PATIENTS IN PSYCHOSOCIAL REHABILITATION PROGRAMME

Expressive Therapies Continuum (ETC), a model posed by Lusebrink and widely used in arts therapies, stipulates that human being is perceiving the world and processing the information in three modes – motion (kinesthetic-sensory perception), emotion (perceptual-emotional perception) and thought (cognitive-symbolic perception), and that optimally functioning person can freely function in all the modes, can slide between the poles of each of the mode and can integrate the elements from various modes and poles. And vice versa - difficulty or inability to function or being stuck in certain modes, can indicate to malfunction and even psychopathology. If that is the case - purposeful integration of various functions by offering expressive activity promoting utilisation of various functions of the ETC, can promote the optimal functioning. In order to find out the capacity of the three resource-based music therapy activities – 1) receptive music therapy activity, 2) semi-structured musical improvisation, 3) song-writing activity - to stimulate the utilisation of specific levels and polarities of the ETC, participants (n=24 cancer patients participating in the psychosocial rehabilitation programme) were asked to assess the elements of the ETC they applied while executing each of the activities. Results of the study show that during the receptive music therapy activity participants mostly used the affective, symbolic and sensory function, during the song-writing activity the mostly used all ETC functions except for sensory, but musical improvisation provoked application of all the ETC functions, and therefore turned out as ultimate activity, capable of integrating all the modes of perception and information processing.