Well-Chosen Objects Support Well-Being for People with Dementia and Their Care Partners

ABSTRACT

Arts & Minds programs aim to promote well-being for people with dementia and their care partners. Educators must balance the needs of participants with the given conditions of display in the museum. While connection to the art historical canon is a consideration for program planning, the choice of artworks for contemplation and dialogue ultimately is contingent upon intersecting criteria that also take into account symptoms of dementia, accessibility, participant interests and the inherent qualities of the art object.

KEYWORDS:

• Well-being
• art
• museums
• dialogue
• Alzheimer’s disease
• dementia
• care partner

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Shanta Lawson, Education Director at The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Arts & Minds participants who inspire our work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

About the author

Carolyn Halpin-Healy, MA, Executive Director of Arts & Minds, is a museum educator whose work is dedicated to improving quality of life through engagement with the visual arts. In 2010 she founded Arts & Minds with neurologist James M. Noble, MD to provide museum-based programs for people with dementia and their care partners. She teaches at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Union Theological Seminary.

ORCID

Carolyn Halpin-Healy http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9413-7654

Notes

1. Both individuals with dementia and care partners are regarded as participants and are referred to as such in this article.

2. Arts & Minds was founded in 2010 by James M. Noble MD, Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurology, Columbia University and independent museum educator Carolyn Halpin-Healy. Programs take place at The Studio Museum in Harlem, The New-York Historical Society, The Jewish Museum, El Museo del Barrio and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. www.artsandminds.org.

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