Week of May 4 - May 10, 2008

Museums and art add meaning to the lives of people living with Alzheimer's. Art experiences, such as visiting museums and discussing works of art in art appreciation settings, help those with Alzheimer’s live a more fulfilling life. Even more than that, they provide insights into the nature of Alzheimer’s and how those living with it feel and express themselves. Art and museums give us a new vision of how those with Alzheimer’s really are saying: “I’m Still Here.”

Dr. Zeisel advocates that art museum programs change people's outlook on Alzheimer’s. When he lectures on the subject, Dr. Zeisel illustrates with images and videos the stimulating results from the Artists for Alzheimer’s (ARTZ) programs held in museums around the world such as the Louvre, the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, MoMA and Harvard University Museum of Natural History. He discusses the types of artwork that appear to overcome cognitive difficulties during tours, the symptoms that appear to be reduced, and cognitive memories that the tours have helped to access. He explains these finding using an understandable neuroscience analysis of the Alzheimer's brain. He also discusses the advancement of non-pharmacologic approaches to Alzheimer's.

The benefits offered by museums and art have been gathering growing attention from the Alzheimer's community. They clearly reduce the four “A”s of Alzheimer’s—Anxiety, Agitation, Aggression, and above all Apathy.

The more society learns about living with Alzheimer’s, the better it understands that having meaning in life is as essential as living it—even with Alzheimer’s. While science focuses on medications to help people with Alzheimer’s live longer, groups like ARTZ and individuals like Dr. Zeisel are developing ways to provide a life worth living.

Artists for Alzheimer's (ARTZ) mission is to employ the arts and artists to reduce the stigma associated with Alzheimer's and to "treat" its symptoms. ARTZ has embraced poetry (Bowery Poetry Club), film (Tribeca Film Institute), theatre, the circus arts (Big Apple Circus), as well as visual art in museums.

In Dr. Zeisel's upcoming lecture at the National Arts Club on Tuesday May 20 at 8:00 PM, museums will be discussed which represent those that have been part of the ARTZ Museums Program in which ARTZ develops guided tours for people living with Alzheimer's. Using the natural “riches” offered by the significant community asset of museums in new creative ways takes advantage of the remaining brain-based abilities people living with Alzheimer’s continue to have, and engenders creativity of all sorts – "The New Frontier!"  The lecture will conclude with a brief recital illustrating these points in music by Dr. Yeou-Cheng Ma and Michael Dadap, Executive Director and Music Director of the Children’s Orchestra Society.

MORE INFORMATION:

ARTZ (Artists for Alzheimer's)

John Zeisel PhD, author of I'm Still Here: Changing Your Mind About Alzheimer's (Penguin / Avery Books) forthcoming, January 2009, is President of the Hearthstone Alzheimer's Foundation and Hearthstone Alzheimer's Care. Artists for Alzheimer's is a foundation program. He has taught sociology and architecture at McGill University, Harvard University, Yale University, the University of Minneapolis, and is presently a Visiting Professor at Salford University in the UK. John was a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies (NIAS) near the Hague, was the first Loeb Fellow at Harvard's Graduate School of Design, and is the author of Inquiry by Design: Environment / Behavior / Neuroscience in Architecture, Interiors, Landscape, and Planning (W.W. Norton, 2006).

RECOMMENDED READING FOR PROFESSIONALS:

When Words Have Lost Their Meaning: Alzheimer's Patients Communicate through Art, By Ruth Abraham

ARTICLE BY:

Edited by Peter Berger, Alzheimer's Weekly

SOURCE:

National Arts Club Lecture Notes from the Fisher Center for Alzheimer's Research Foundation

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