Art Museums Engage With Alzheimers

Francesca Rosenberg leads people with Alzheimer’s and their caretakers in a discussion at the Museum of Modern Art. Photo by JASON BROWNRIGG via ARTnews

Fascinating article in ARTnews on how various art educators are looking to a special MoMA program for ways to use art to get Alzheimer patients engaged:

Visual art is particularly well suited to helping Alzheimer’s patients, research has found. According to Anne Basting, director of the Center on Age and Community at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, art can trigger the emotional memory that often remains strong in Alzheimer’s patients, and can give them access to other memories as well. And participants in art tours don’t feel that they must already know something or that they will be expected to remember dates, names, or information. “The beautiful part of the program is that nobody mentions the word dementia. It’s all about the art, and they can all connect to that. Nobody’s sick, nobody’s different,” is how Kara Berringer, an art therapist at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum, explains the benefits of the program.