Brush Handwriting Treatment of Emotional Problems in Patients with Type II Diabetes

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Handwriting performance in the absence of visual control in writer's cramp patients: Initial observations

BACKGROUND: The present study was aimed at investigating the writing parameters of writer's cramp patients and control subjects during handwriting of a test sentence in the absence of visual control. METHODS: Eight right-handed patients with writer's cramp and eight healthy volunteers as age-matched control subjects participated in the study. The experimental task consisted in writing a test sentence repeatedly for fifty times on a pressure-sensitive digital board. The subject did not have visual control on his handwriting. The writing performance was stored on a PC and analyzed off-line. RESULTS: During handwriting all patients developed a typical dystonic limb posture and reported an increase in muscular tension along the experimental session. The patients were significantly slower than the controls, with lower mean vertical pressure of the pen tip on the paper and they could not reach the endmost letter of the sentence in the given time window. No other handwriting parameter differences were found between the two groups. CONCLUSION: Our findings indicate that during writing in the absence of visual feedback writer's cramp patients are slower and could not reach the endmost letter of the test sentence, but their level of automatization is not impaired and writer's cramp handwriting parameters are similar to those of the controls except for even lower vertical pressure of the pen tip on the paper, which is probably due to a changed strategy in such experimental conditions

Chinese calligraphy handwriting (CCH): a case of rehabilitative awakening of a coma patient after stroke

Henry SR Kao,1 Stewart PW Lam,2 Tin Tin Kao3,4 1Calligraphy Therapy Laboratory, Shenzhen Institute of Neuroscience, Shenzhen, China; 2Research and Development Division, Calli-Health Society, 3Department of Geography, 4Department of Psychology, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Introduction: This study investigated the efficacy of Chinese calligraphy handwriting (CCH) for the awakening of patients under a vegetative state after stroke. The theories, the instrument, and the treatment protocols were reported. A single case of a severe stroke patient who was in a coma state for 2 years is presented in this study. The objectives were to apply finger writing as a new method to awaken a stroke patient in a coma state and to test the effect of this method in improving the patient’s vegetative states over time. Case presentation: A 55-year-old man suffered a severe stroke in 2004 which left him in a coma for 2 years without any systematic rehabilitation. A culture-based finger-writing method of visual-spatial intervention was then applied to improve his condition. The writing tasks involved aided viewing and finger tracing of sets of innovative characters with enriched visual-spatial and movement characteristics. Following regular treatment protocols involving diverse movement and sensory feedback, the patient was awakened after 12 months. As a consequence, the patient showed significant behavioral changes favoring enhanced focusing, alertness, visual scan, visual span, and quickened visual and motor responses. The treatment continued for another 12 months. As the treatment progressed, we gradually observed improvements in his attention span and mental concentration. His eye ball movements – the left eye in particular – were quickened and showed wider visual angularity in his focal vision. Currently, the patient can now watch television, engage in improved visual sighting, and focus on visual-spatial and cognitive-linguistic materials. Conclusion: This CCH method of training by finger tracking has shown its effectiveness in awakening the patient from his coma state and in producing long-term, clinical outcomes that were similar from those that took place 10 years ago. This finding supports the efficacy of the system for clinical improvement of the patient’s conditions. Keywords: calligraphy therapy, coma, vegetative state, awakening, functional plasticity, finger writin

Cognitive effects of calligraphy therapy for older people: a randomized controlled trial in Hong Kong

Timothy CY Kwok1,2, Xue Bai1,3, Henry SR Kao4,5, Jessie CY Li1, Florence KY Ho11Jockey Club Centre for Positive Ageing; 2Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; 3Department of Social Work and Social Administration; 4Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; 5Department of Psychology, Fu Jen Catholic University, TaiwanBackground: This pilot study investigated the effects of calligraphy therapy on cognitive function in older Hong Kong Chinese people with mild cognitive impairment.Methods: A single-blind, randomized controlled trial was carried out in a sample of 31 adults aged 65 years or older with mild cognitive impairment. They were randomly assigned to receive either intensive calligraphy training led by a trained research assistant for eight weeks (calligraphy group, n = 14) or no calligraphy treatment (control group, n = 17). Participants' cognitive function was assessed by the Chinese version of the Mini-Mental State Examination (CMMSE) before and after calligraphy treatment. Repeated measures analysis of variance and paired samples t-tests were used to analyze the data.Results: A significant interaction effect of time and intervention was detected [F (1, 29) = 9.11, P = 0.005, η2= 0.24]. The calligraphy group was found to have a prominent increase in CMMSE global score, and scores in the cognitive areas of orientation, attention, and calculation after two months (∆M = 2.36, P < 0.01), whereas their counterparts in the control group experienced a decline in CMMSE score (∆M = -0.41, P < 0.05).Conclusion: Calligraphy therapy was effective for enhancing cognitive function in older people with mild cognitive impairment and should be incorporated as part of routine programs in both community and residential care settings.Keywords: calligraphy therapy, Chinese elderly, mild cognitive impairment, cognitive function, randomized controlled tria

Lifestyle appraisal of diabetic patients - A comparative study between Hong Kong Beijing

本研究对35名北京和59名香港的胰岛素依赖型(I型)糖尿病病人进行测试。病人需提供他们生活模式和服食糖尿病药物资料。主诊医生则提供病人病情的资料。结果显示北京病人运动的次数比香港病人多。香港病人服用其它非糖尿病药物和面对'应激事件'的次数则比北京病人多。香港男病人的生活模式比女病人和北京病人都差。北京病人中，生活模式与服药的服从程度和糖尿病病情均没有显著性的关系。但在香港病人中，怠倦的生活模式与服药的服从程度有关联。而且，服药的服从程度越低则医治糖尿效果越差。估计京港糖尿病人的生活模式差异与两地都市化和西方化的不同程度有关。按研究结果推断，生活模式教育或会对控制糖尿病病情起正面的作用。link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Special culture model of calligraphy therapy: A study on the PTSD interventions of primary school students after the 5.12 Sichuan earthquakes

Symposium on Calligraphy Therapy and oral presentation書法與治療專題座談與口頭報