Creativity and dementia: Does artistic activity affect well-being beyond the art class?

Abstract

The Alzheimer's Association's Memories in the Making (MIM) art activity program is intended to enhance the well-being of individuals who are living with dementia. Previous evaluations of MIM have found that participants show benefits on several well-being domains measured by the Greater Cincinnati Chapter Well-Being Observation Tool. The current study extended those findings by looking for evidence of carry-over effects beyond the temporal boundaries of MIM sessions. Additionally, this study evaluated key psychometric qualities of the assessment instrument. Seventy-six MIM participants with middle- to late-stage dementia were evaluated by interns and care facility staff at the beginning, middle and end of a 12-week MIM program. Interns focused on behavior within MIM sessions and staff rated functioning outside MIM sessions. Staff reported no significant changes in resident well-being across the 12-week program. Interns reported significant improvements from the beginning to middle and end of the program on five well-being domains. Psychometric analyses of the Greater Cincinnati Chapter Well-Being Observation Tool identified weaknesses in inter-rater reliability and found that the instrument measures two orthogonal factors--interpreted as 'Well-Being' and 'Ill-Being' - not the seven domains claimed. Quantitative evidence for the effectiveness of MIM is ambiguous, but anecdotal observations indicate that the program is beneficial for some participants, if only fleetingly.

Exploring the theoretical foundations of visual art programmes for people living with dementia

“…Behavioural observation captured changes in well-being ( Kinney & Rentz, 2005 ; Gross et al, 2013 ; Rentz, 2002 ; Sauer, Fopma-Loy, Kinney, & Lokon, 2016 ) and in engagement ( MacPherson, Bird, Anderson, Davis & Blair, 2009 ) . Roe et al (2016) took a more subjective, ethnographic approach with their observation, qualitatively analysing the researcher’s fieldwork notes from the arts sessions, as did Huzzan et al (2016).…”

“…In contrast, one of the art-making programmes (Memories in the Making) delivered in three studies ( Kinney & Rentz, 2005 ; Rent, 2002; Gross et al, 2013 ) explicitly encouraged to talk about memories the paintings stirred , w ith some well-being outcomes captured. Others, although not focussing on reminiscence for memory, suggested that participants recalled some memories.…”

Co-creativity, well-being and agency: A case study analysis of a co-creative arts group for people with dementia

“…Although there has been an increasing interest in exploring well-being for people with dementia in arts projects (Gross, Danilova, & Vandehey, 2015, Osman, Tischler, & Schneider, 2016, Windle et al, 2017), there is a dearth of research that has focused on the capacity for agency in these contexts. This is understandable given a contemporary context that ‘gives’ the arts to people with dementia and assumes that dementia necessarily involves a loss of self and identity (Hughes et al, 2005).…”

The Affective Creativity of a Couple in Dementia Care

“…Those above-mentioned interventions are predominantly conducted in controlled environments in line with detached observations, interviews and surveys in order to precisely measure and analyze the cause and effect of the experiments. It is no wonder that this outcome-centered approach exposes a significant gap in “the more mundane ordinary forms of creativity” (Bellass et al 2019 :2) “beyond the temporal boundaries” of the events (Gross et al 2015 :31).…”