Should Promoting the Arts as Treatment for People with Alzheimer’s Receive More Attention?

I want to wholeheartedly agree with Dr Zeisel.

I am certainly no expert on the disease but since my wife was diagnosed with it

a few months ago, I have been forced to spend hundreds of hours in researching the current status of the allopathic and complementary protocols.  Sadly, the further I delve into it, the more confused I am becoming and observing similar occurences in these diverse worlds of research. 

In meticulously sending out many email queries to  holistic health research organizations such as  Linus Pauling Institute, Jonathan Wright MD/Tahoma Clinic, Bastyr University, Weimar Institute,  and Loma Linda University, I have become deeply disillusioned since none, absolutely none, have made any attempts in getting back to me by email, snail mail, or phone. And I have made more than one attempt in contacting these proactive organizations supposedly on the cutting edge of preventive

medicine and complementary models of health instead of disease.

Being a retired public and private school art teacher I have a great deal of interest in

what Dr Zeisel  is researching and I also believe this particular avenue to offer tremendous potential.

I wish him the very best in his quest and offer my email address for contact.

David Clumpner

<archives2001@yahoo.com>

I completely agreed with Dr. Zeisel about our limited knowledge, related to the brain's unique restoration capacity and lack of practical applications. The brain plasticity data give us new hope to prevent cognitive decline in people with dementia. Practicing an integrative psychiatry, I witness the peoples' capacity to utilize the brain's own reserves to arrest memory decline for several years.

The art, music, light, hands movements, rhythm are very powerful tools to activate the brain.

Valentin Bragin. M.D.

www.howtoactivateyourbrain.com

I agree that arts play an important role in adding value and joy to the Alzheimer's patient's life.  My mom enjoyed participating in activities at the nursing home, and interested in whatever I was doing in quilting, writing and illustrating when she lived with me.

I conducted a 3-part workshop (three consecutive Wednesday afternoons) in scrapbooking and family memories with Alzheimer's patients at a nursing home.  We kept it very simple, and they required a great deal of help.  However, the patients and we instructors thoroughly enjoyed this activity.  I'm putting together guidelines for others to follow for this and similar activities and have written articles about the experience as I conduct more workshops.

Not all patients will be interested in arts activities; some will have very short attention spans; some will participate actively; others will simply look on and smile or share memories. I've found these activities tend to bring joy to the patients' day.  I know these activities bring joy to my day as I work with the patients.