FOR MIND AND HANDS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 280, 7 March 1941, Page 3

FOR MIND AND HANDS

GENERAL HOSPITAL IN EGYPT i. In an attractively untidy room s in the New Zealand General Hospital here,, a bench is covered with , + half-finished model locomotives, mechanised toys and domestic artic-< ■. les, and there is a smell of paint and glue in the air. This little & workshop is a home of an activity which the medical officers call "occupationai therapy," but which •, might more simply be termed exer- . cise of the mind, and the hands. , , Doctors find that there are three classes of hospital patients who mav derive remarkable benefits when they are given > constructive •'.» work of this Fort to do. Firstly, - there arc those who arc confined to # -v bed for long .periods, and whose minds tend to become "stale'* through the monotony of inaction. This tendency is especially real ire the life of a soldier, since even out of hospital his normal routine, in periods of training at least, give? ,| him little scope fox the exercising' =- of his own initiative. Secondly, there are the patients suffering from mental stress and disorders, whose conditions may only be wot- * sened by idleness, arid thirdly, 'n. t a much different class, those who- r,| have lost the use of certain muscler groups as ai result of injury or pos- > sibly amputation. J Those are the facts behind the not .unusual sight of a soldier-patient knitting, or doing some other form: r of handwork, as he lies in bed, and : of a convalescent bending over a: . A mechanical toy or a table lamp on a workshop bench. The satisfaction of making and achieving things is | an experience common to all men., ; The patient who is menaced by ; monotony no longer watches the weary hours drag by; the man whohas been mentally upset looks at the thing he has built with a glow of satisfaction and returning faith | in himself; the injured -soldier wh» 3 has to make his left hand do what ;r. his right hand did before, feels an inward pride at the progress he is' * making. The sale of rhe toys and other articles made by the men puts oc- ■ cupationai therapy on a self-sup-porting basis, and it is hoped that \| the work will be made a recognised branch of New Zealand - military l 'g hospital activity. •'j