For older adults living with mild cognitive impairment or dementia, creative arts-based activities can offer many benefits from enjoyment as leisure/recreation to an avenue to maintain cognitive, social and emotional wellbeing. With growing interest and recognition that technology could have potential to assist in delivering these activities in more accessible and personalised ways, a scoping review was undertaken to systematically examine the scientific literature for technology-assisted creative arts activities for older adults living with dementia. We searched PubMed, PsychINFO, Web of Science, Scopus and ACM Digital Library databases using keywords centering on population with dementia, an intervention using technology, and a context of creative arts, with no restrictions on the type of outcome measured. We retrieved 3739 records, with an additional 22 from hand-searching. 51 full-text articles met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Findings of the review indicate technologies principally being designed for music activities (listening, and music-making), as well as storytelling and visual arts. The majority of devices were custom-made, with studies mainly reporting on validating the success of the device/intervention. This suggests most work in the field is currently at prototyping stage, although a few devices are now commercially available. Recommendations for future research includes involvement of participants reporting on their previous experiences in the arts and how this influences co-design choices, and inclusion of different severities of dementia in the participant/co-design group. Furthering device development past prototyping stage as well as collaboration between teams would enable comparisons to be made across different types of devices used for the same activity, and comparisons across arts-based activities that could lead to cross-disciplinary outcomes for the design of creative arts-based assistive technologies.

BackgroundWith opportunities for self‐expression and enjoyment, creative arts activities can offer many benefits for people living with dementia including improving health and wellbeing. During the COVID‐19 pandemic, arts organizations have had to transition activities previously involving face‐to‐face interactions to remote delivery. Aiming to understand the accommodations that have been made for people living with dementia (PLWD) to access arts activities through technology, we conducted a survey with arts‐workers involved in the remote delivery.MethodA survey using a mixture of qualitative and quantitative questions was distributed online to arts workers delivering activities remotely for PLWD in the UK during the COVID‐19 pandemic. These included what types of activities were employed, how the activities changed due to remote access (including motivations for access), what tools were used, what technological support there was for access, and how this affected the number of people they were able to reach with these activities.ResultsTwenty‐seven arts workers (mean age = 47 SD = 6.4) delivering music (23 respondents), arts (8), crafts (4), dance (6), drama (3), and word‐based activities (1) responded. The main tools used included: Zoom, YouTube Live, Microsoft Teams, and Facebook Live. Several themes emerged from the thematic analysis of open‐ended responses: i) gaining a sense of community, finding structure and purpose, and combatting against physical isolation were perceived to be major motivations for people living with dementia, ii) creating opportunities for choosing, contributing input, and sharing was important, and iii) changes in access resulted from the shift to remote delivery such as difficulty for PLWD to interact through technology, user setup and maintenance needs, and the possibility for geographic expansion of the remote service.ConclusionsThe findings highlight the diverse, individual needs of people living with dementia in group arts participation, while still prioritizing their motivations for participation including sense of community, structure, purpose, and combatting against feelings of isolation during the pandemic. Particularly successful remote activities gave opportunities for meaningful contribution and had a multitude of possibilities for access for PLWD.

Background: Alongside a growing use of creative arts within community and residential settings to support the health and wellbeing of older adults living with dementia, is an increasing availability of technology, although development for this context has up till now been limited. To examine how technology might be used to meet the leisure, health, and wellbeing needs of people living with dementia, we conducted a scoping review to assess the current state of development of creative assistive technologies across various art-forms. Method: Our research questions asked i) what are the arts-based activities being delivered through technology for older adults living with dementia or mild cognitive impairment, and ii) what are the characteristics of technologies being used to enhance these arts-based activities? A comprehensive search was conducted using PubMed, PsychINFO, Web of Science, Scopus and ACM Digital Library databases. Two raters independently screened titles and abstracts, rating whether articles fit our inclusion criteria. A total of 3762 records were retrieved, of which 51 articles were included after full-text screening.Result: Music (29), visual art (7), storytelling (6) and film-making (2) were delivered through technology to older adults living with dementia. Other activities included dance (1), interactive light and sound (1), and incorporating arts activities into multisensory objects (3). Two applications specifically allowed a choice between multiple creative arts (2). Single papers focused on Technologies were mainly custom-made devices rather than applications using everyday devices such as smartphones or computers. Devices were often oriented towards individual use, supported by carers rather than groups of individuals at once, with fewer flexible in use alternate between solo/group. Outcomes measured were predominantly in terms of validating feasibility of the device and/or arts activity reported. Conclusion:Current research concerning technology-assisted creative arts activities for people living with dementia mainly demonstrates feasibility of new devices, indicating that the field in general is predominantly in the prototyping stage. Future research should consider device development past prototyping, and consider comparing devices across different art-forms i.e, applications having a varied range of artforms which allow for individual needs and interests to be accommodated.