Tipo digitare & La malattia di Alzheimer: Può Monet Aiuto?

“This partnership speaks to the role that visual arts can play beyond aesthetic enjoyment. Every time we work with a different audience we learn so much more about how our works of art are meaningful to other people. & #8221; Dale Hilton, Cleveland Museum of Art, Febbraio 2010

Ieri, 24 Febbraio 2010, il Cleveland Museum of Art and the Cleveland Clinic jointly hosted a symposium exploring the possibility of making art accessible to dementia patients.

Alzheimer’s disease is said to start in what is the brain’s memory center – by destroying cells and causing problems with thinking and behaviour. During the disease’s early to mid stage, comunque, those areas of the brain that govern emotion, perception and creativity are thought to remain intact. These undisturbed areas of the brain make it possible for patients to respond to visual arts and music, even when they have lost connection to the everyday world.

“It makes good sense if you think about the neurology of the disease,” said Dr. Randolph Schiffer, director of the Clinic’s Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas. “Art can be a way to reach and maintain the healthy areas” of the brain.

Schiffer, also a speaker at the Cleveland symposium, said the joint programme highlights a trend among physicians to approach Alzheimer’s treatment in less of a medical way. “I try to talk to them and relate to them and hold on to that sense of who they are,” he said. “Our task is to help the person hold themselves together as long as possible and help with transitions.”

There is not a lot of research to prove Alzheimer’s patients respond to art and music, but Schiffer says he and other physicians have seen it. Forty volunteers from both the art museum and the clinic will learn to tailor art tours for patients with dementia. Special tours resulting form this collaboration will begin in the next few months. Clinical physicians will be encouraged to advise their patients and their caregivers to sign up for the tours.

il Cleveland project follows in the footsteps of the very successful MeetMe project in New York City, il Museum of Modern Art’s Alzheimer’s Project: Making Art Accessible to People with Dementia.