Dementia patients in nursing homes do memory care activities each day. These activities are primarily motoric (sporting), domestic (laundry), cognitive (memory training), and spiritual (religious practice). Despite these tasks being fundamental to the well-being of patients, one thing needs to be added: artistic work.
This does not mean that patients have no contact with art at all. They regularly experience receptive art therapy, such as painting and contemplating art images from museums; however, they rarely get to create three-dimensional, sculpture-based art.
According to the Alzheimer’s Association, dementia is “a general term for loss of memory, language, problem-solving and other thinking abilities that are severe enough to interfere with daily life.” And Alzheimer’s disease accounts for 60–80% of the cases. Empirical reports repeatedly emphasize that people with Alzheimer’s can do creative work and experience happiness.
A journal published by University Clinic Bonn in Germany shared a pilot study that tested the effectiveness of sculpting in male dementia patients. In the study, researchers selected 12 voluntary participants, six in the sculptural activity group and six in the control group. Each participant had been diagnosed with dementia based on DSM-IV criteria.
The sculptural activity occurred once a week (for two hours) over thirteen weeks. Participants in the sculptural activity group were asked to sculpt human-sized tree trunks in a way that requires strength and rhythm. This allows “the experience of corporality, space and orientation.” In contrast, the control group did paintings, sang and played board games instead.
The result shows that the sculptural activity group experienced significantly higher positive changes than the control group, which indicates that supervised sculpture-based art can enhance the wellbeing of patients living with dementia.
Because creating three-dimensional figures that resemble humans can increase patients’ personal awareness and relations with others, eventually improving mental attributes such as mental state, attention, self-reliance and corporeal memory.
Raquel Chapin Stephenson, an art program coordinator for New York University’s Creative Aging Therapeutic Services Program explains,
“In Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia, the channels of communication close down… The creative arts can help provide a way to communicate that is not verbal. Often those with Alzheimer’s will lose awareness of those around them, but sometimes during an art therapy session they will respond to those across the table from them. And that helps pull people together and give them a sense of community.”
Sculpture is a form of artistic expression that impacts brain wave patterns, emotions and the nervous system. And the materials used are the medium for patients to experience sensory and aesthetic sensations, which sequentially activate creative potential and buried emotional and cognitive resources.
