From rendering to remembering: Art therapy for people with Alzheimer's disease

Abstract

Throughout the last two decades, creative arts therapies have been increasingly used for support and therapeutic care in a variety of health care facilities. Personal growth through artistic activity is possible at every stage of life, even for those with dementia due to older age. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a prevalent neurological condition without definitive cause and with limited effective treatments and interventions available. The brain regions and mechanisms involved in creating visual art are not irreparably compromised for those with Alzheimer's disease. Art therapy as a treatment for people with dementia can improve the quality of life through the benefits that come from using the visual arts to communicate inner experience and connect with others. Furthermore, creative activities stimulate several regions of the brain simultaneously, encouraging a healthy brain in older adults by promoting the brain's plastic processes. This article provides a review of the benefits of art therapy for people with AD based on the existing literature and encourages further research into the use of art therapy with this client group.

Keywords:

• Alzheimer's disease
• art
• dementia
• art therapy
• research

Notes

¹ Creativity can broadly be considered the production of any novel or useful material. Creativity exists in virtually any domain but for simplicity here it will be referred to as the process that goes into creating any novel product or piece of visual artwork (Bogousslavsky, 2005).

² Non-verbal creativity was quantified using scores from the Picture Completion subtest from the Figural battery of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT). Participants are given a page with ten meaningless, incomplete figures and are asked to add to the image to create an interesting object or picture. They are instructed to aim for unique and unusual objects or pictures which are then scored according to standardised TTCT criteria: Fluency (the number of drawings out of ten that met criteria to be scored); Originality (the degree to which obvious choices were avoided in the drawings); Elaboration (the amount of details included in the drawings); and Resistance to Premature Closure (the degree to which the picture transcends from the original stimulus). The images were further scored using the TTCT Checklist of Creative Strengths which included Emotional Expressiveness, Unusual Visualisation, Humour, Richness or Imagery, Colourfulness and Fantasy, among other criteria (see Rankin et al., 2007).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Crystal Ehresman

Biographical details

Crystal Ehresman completed her undergraduate education in Psychology at the University of Saskatchewan and attained her Master's degree in Neuroscience at the University of Lethbridge. Throughout her life, Crystal always maintained a strong passion for creating art as an effective form of expression. This led her to attain a diploma at the Vancouver Art Therapy Institute, where she currently instructs Research Methods and is a student research adviser.