A Valuable Endorsement of Art Therapy for Alzheimer’s

A valuable affirmation of art therapy as a contribution to Alzheimer’s patients has come from John Varghese.  Varghese is the editor of BACE, published by John Wiley and Sons, which provides global understanding essential for a future drug discovery for the treatment of Alzheimer’s.   The importance for me, for us, for everyone, is that he found it important to include an Afterward to the purely scientific book, relating to the significance of art therapy in the treatment of Alzheimer’s patients.  This reflects the seriousness with which Varghese views the humanistic approach to Alzheimer’s patients.  I was glad to be the contributor to his book.

Art therapists relate to the continuing human qualities of Alzheimer’s patients in spite of the illness.  We attend with the utmost seriousness to his personal longings, aesthetic preferences, social style, and emotions such as anger, sadness and aggression.  As language skills deteriorate, the patient can use painting and sculpting, symbols and images, color and lines, as alternative ways to communicate and express their inner world.

In the book “ When Words Have Lost Their Meaning: Alzheimer’s Patients Communicate Through Art,” Greenwood Press, 2005, a chapter is dedicated to show the ways in which art materials can be chosen and presented to loved ones and patients.  Many caregivers, though not therapists, have found this practical chapter very useful.

 

Back in the blogging world

A long time has passed since I wrote my last blog.  I will now write more frequently because of what I see as a growing interest in the contribution of art to the well being of Alzheimer’s patients.  One of the signs of this is that my book  “When Words Have Lost Their Meaning: Alzheimer’s Patients Communicate Through Art” (Greenwood Publication 2005) is in greater demand now than it ever was.   The aging population of the world is growing and with it an ever increasing number of people are being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.  More resources are needed and being sought by the medical world and by the ordinary family who has to cope with a loved one who has the condition.   One of the resources of value is art therapy – not to cure but to provide consolation, means of communication, self worth, and an activity that confirms the patients continuing humanity in spite of dementia.

 

FACING ACCUSATIONS

Friends and colleagues often seek my advice about ageing parents who are increasingly confused and behave in bizarre, unrecognizable ways. They know that I have traveled that long hard road with my mother who suffered from Alzheimer’s, as well as gaining experience through my work of many years in a geriatric facility.

Recently, Rose (we’ll call her that), told me that her mother has begun to accuse her of taking her money, of cheating her and leaving her destitute. Rose is an intelligent woman and knows something about Alzheimer’s, but in spite of it, she is angry. She can’t help it. Of all people, she says, how can my mother accuse me. Me, her daughter. I spend so much time, thought and effort to make her life easier. I am a devoted daughter, and always have been. The thought of stealing from her is so abhorrent. It’s too objectionable an accusation for me to abide.

But of course, she loses sight of the fact that it is the dementia that is talking, not her beloved mother. The accusation comes from the brain of a person suffering from a progressive and cruel illness. I tried, with some success to paraphrase this accusation of Rose’s mother. What she was saying is, “Rose, I am so muddled up. I cannot keep control of the thoughts in my head. I know I had some money somewhere, but I don’t know where it is or how much it is. Maybe I mislaid it somewhere. I just can’t keep track of things. I think the people around me must be taking my money away from me. You might well be one of them.”

The thing is it is easier for Rose’s mom to think someone is stealing from her, rather than to face the hideous reality that she is losing her mental faculties. In a moment of anger and insult, Rose fails to understand that her mother’s perceptions and judgments are increasingly faulty, that she no longer perceives the world in a reliable manner, as she used to, or as the rest of the world does. Things don’t connect, because the brain cannot interpret what it sees. Have any of you been accused in such a way? Is it hard to control the natural sense of insult? I’d love to know. It’s an important subject.

 

Sharing Art Images with Alzheimer’s Patients

Recently there has been a wealth of interesting information about the important value of creative activity for Alzheimer’s sufferers.  One of the finest projects was conceived by John Zeisel , President of Hearthstone Geriatric Facilities, with Francesca Rosenberg.  Groups of men and women are taken to see art collections at the MOMA in New York and the Fine Arts Museum in Boston.  The paintings, says Randy Kennedy, of the New York Times, (The Pablo Picasso Alzheimer’s Therapy) “sometimes spark interpretive and expressive powers” that had previously been hidden.  And care officials say that “at the very least, they see temporary but palpable and moving, improvement in the small group of people who have participated in the tours.”

Through my experience as an art therapist with Alzheimer’s patients, I can confirm the value of this passive art activity, of the stimulating effects of observing powerful, beautiful, colorful images.  Sometimes, when working with patients who were simply too confused, too depressed, and too tired to take crayon to paper, I would bring an art book and direct their gaze to paintings that, with experience, I had learned would elicit alert interest.  For instance, the pictures of Edward Hopper, with their scenes
of isolation and loneliness could result in a conversation about their own loneliness.  Chagall’s colorful images of men and women, marriage, and intimacy could lead to memories of past, youthful love and their own romances. 

Try this:  Collect some of these images, sit close to your loved one, and begin to talk about the picture.  Ask them if they like the picture and why.  Ask which colors they like, what feeling the picture gives them.  Share your own feelings, which will then stimulate them to agree or disagree.  Ask them what they think is happening in the picture.  Maybe what will happen later to any one of the characters in the picture.  Help them to focus on what they see and relate to it.  If it is a portrait, focus on the features, what they say about the person.  Ask if they would like to get to know that person.  Have a laugh about the name that you might give to him or her.

There are a few “dont’s.”

Don’t choose very frightening images (Goya’s “black Paintings” for instance.  Confused people are essentially emotionally vulnerable.)

Don’t choose very abstract pictures.  They are harder to talk about.

Don’t choose pictures with many small details that confuse the eye.  Old people often have eyesight difficulties and the image can appear to them as a muddle of shapes that they cannot interpret.

Good luck.  Let me know how it went.  If there were difficulties, share them with me.  Maybe I can help.

 

Some ideas for art activities with loved ones

In Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence, he says that some “emotional reactions and emotional memories can be formed without any conscious, cognitive participationat all.”  It is an area of the brain, called the amygdala, which acts as a repository for such impressions and memories that  have never reached full awareness.

 

The thought came to me that maybe the amygdala is saved from the ravages of dementia for far longer than the cortex.  And it might explain why  art activities, intuitions, images and symbols can access those memories when cortical, rational, verbal memory is failing.

 

For those of you caring for a victim of Alzheimer’s, it is worth trying to access those stored memories and abilities:  

• Take a few pages, a new box of oil pastels with 12 colors, (all

  new and inviting), lay them on a table, sit beside your loved one and ask him or her to choose a color and make some marks on the page.  If he/she is reluctant, you might start yourself.  Make a line or a shape somewhere in the middle and then invite him/her
  to add to their own mark. Thus you can play backwards and forwards with colors and shapes, some cautious and some free and daring, some swirling around and some limited to a restricted place on the page.

• Put a very simple object on the table and ask her/him
  to try and copy it.  Maybe a bright, simply shaped vase, or two pieces of fruit such as an apple and a banana next to each other.  Again, if there is reluctance, do it on your own page at the same time. You can be an example and give courage.

Try these simple exercises.  They can be most effective and provide some peaceful, pleasurable together time.

If you want more ideas, there is a chapter in my book “When Words Have Lost Their Meaning” in which I provide ways of eliciting creative art from people suffering from dementia.

 

Any questions or comments will be gladly responded to.

 

Alzheimer’s and Paranoia

In my book “When Words Have Lost Their Meaning: Alzheimer’s patients communicate through art” I show how patients reveal  their suffering through their artwork.   In a wonderful article today in the New York Times (Self-Portraits Chronicle a Descent Into Alzheimer’s), Professor Patricia Utermohlen talks about the deterioration in her husband’s art during his illness.  His expressive portraits show a wide range of emotions such as “sadness,  anxiety, resignation and feelings of feebleness and shame.” One of the emotions that the article doesn’t mention is paranoia.  When Alzheimer’s sufferers gradually lose their ability to recognize people, they feel themselves surrounded by strangers. An acquaintance, whom they do not recognise,  may come and hug them hello.  But they cannot work out who is friend and who is foe so they become confused and fearful. 

You might want to take a look at the cover of my book at http://www.AlzheimersArt.com  to see my mother’s rendition of a famous Matisse painting.  The eyes are glancing to the side with suspicion, checking out the world around her which no longer makes any sense.  At least she had the pictures through which she could express her distress.

 

LIFE, HOPE, JOY

Hello, 

I want to introduce my blog with a story.  A very righteous man died some years ago.  He went straight up to heaven, confident, after the life that he had led, that he would be let in with no questions.  Not so easy.  God asked him what he had done with his life that justified being allowed into heaven.  Well, he said, I was honest and never cheated anyone.  I was a loyal husband, I took care of my kids, I donated a tenth of my income to charitable causes, I never knowingly caused anyone any pain.  

Well that’s not bad, said God, but you left something out.  What about joy, pleasure and love. 

Oh said the man, I was so busy doing good deeds I never had the time.

Well said God, you have to go back and dedicate part of your life to happiness and joyfulness.  Only then will you be allowed into heaven. 

In my work as an art therapist, this is my ultimate focus.  No matter how sad and painful life is, the quest is to explore the potential for joy. 

I would love to hear what you have to say about this.

Ruth