Children at Central DuPage Hospital Get a Dose of Art, Music as Part of Treatment

WHEATON, IL --

Pediatric patients at Central DuPage Hospital are getting a dose of music and art therapy during their stay thanks to a new program that integrates arts education and medicine. Patients can explore everything from learning to play the ukulele and percussion instruments to perfecting their painting and poetry skills.

The arts education program at Central DuPage Hospital began earlier this year as part of a partnership with Snow City Arts, a Chicago-based company dedicated to nurturing the developmental, psychological and social needs of hospitalized children. Snow City Arts has already conducted more than 200 one-on-one arts education sessions at Central DuPage Hospital. Dora Castro-Ahillen, the hospital’s Child Life Coordinator, told Daily Herald that she has seen value in the arts breaking up the monotony of constant tests and treatments in “decreasing that anxiety in the kids.”

Snow City Arts has provided similar services to thousands of children at Ann and Robert H Lurie Children’s Hospital, Rush University Children’s Hospital and other facilities in and around Chicago.

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