Art Therapy and Dementia

“A growing number of Alzheimer’s institutions and caregivers are realizing that a musical walk down memory lane — a dance class, storytelling session, art project, or museum tour — can do more than offer pleasant diversions. They can improve a number of disease symptoms as well as quality of life.”

That’s the message in an inspiring and thought-provoking Boston Globe article titled “Is Art Therapy the Answer for Dementia?” http://b.globe.com/Vgurly.

“Whether it be fine arts, music, listening to music, going to museums. All those things do not have an impact on the disease per se. What they do most likely is they get through to the person with Alzheimer’s by exploiting the areas of the brain which are least impaired,” says Boston University’s Robert Stern, also the director of BU’s Alzheimer’s Disease Center’s Clinical Core.

The highly recommended article is filled with insight and advice for medical professionals and family members of persons living with dementia.

 

Rethinking Behavior Modification

Over the last few weeks I’ve helped provide effective interventions for individuals living with dementia who present disturbing behaviors that include repetitive vocalization, screaming, aggression toward others or passivity.  As a certified Recreation Therapist, I now follow a particular treatment model that challenges prevalent views of dementia-related behaviors, regarding them not so much as disturbances but rather as an expression of needs.

To determine what the needs may be, I start by studying the individual’s background. What do they like to do, what do they like to read, do they like to talk about places where they’ve traveled? What personal characteristics or life experiences shape behavior patterns overall? What are the current situational variables that could be triggering behaviors—boredom, confusion, fear, hunger, need to go to the bathroom, bothersome light or noise, too cold or too hot temperatures, a scratchy shirt tag?

Need-driven behaviors may be the only way that dementia patients can communicate their distress. A therapist or caregiver must therefore focus on determining the irritating physical or social factors in play and strive to prevent or reduce them. 

Bottom line: Each intervention must be client and time-specific. This means crafting an intervention that’s personally tailored to the individual and using it at the time when disruptive behavior most commonly occurs. 

FINAL NOTE: “An Outcast among Peers Gains Traction on Alzheimer’s Cure” – This is a fascinating article that appeared last week in the Wall Street Journal. Find it at http://on.wsj.com/Z1MaNa

Books to Check Out

There are many questions, like the following, that little ones may have when they begin to notice that a grandma or a grandpa starts forgetting: Why is he acting differently? Why doesn’t she remember who I am? I have read and reviewed some excellent children’s books that address this problem and are appropriate to share with grandkids ages 4 and above. Here are ones that stand out for me; I’ve included links to Amazon.com:

Striped Shirts and Flowered Pants: A Story about Alzheimer’s Disease for Young Children
By Barbara Schnurbush

Still My Grandma
By Veronique Van Den Abeele and Claude K. Dubois

What’s Happening to Grandpa?
By Maria Shriver and Sandra Speidel

Always My Grandpa: A Story for Children about Alzheimer’s Disease
by Linda Scacco and Nicole Wong

Grandma’s Cobwebs
By Ann Frantti

The illustrations in each book are great and the vocabulary is well suited to their intended audience.  I’d like to point out that Grandma’s Cobwebs comes with a guide for parents to help them through the process of answering young listeners’ questions.

On a final note for today’s Blog Post, I’m happy to report that we were able to organize a 29-member Cohen-Rosen Team to participate in the October 27 Walk to End Alzheimer’s, which was held on the Washington, DC mall. “Fighting this horrible disease needs all the help it can get,” said Family Council Co-chair Carolyn Levine, who was part of the group.