Arts and Dementia

Arc, Stockton on Tees

29th November 2012

What is dementia?

Damage to the brain that can affect:

• Memory

• Communication

• Visual Processing

• Body Awareness

• Planning, judgement and control

Dementia – the context

• The number of people aged 75 and older in England is projected to increase from 4 million in 2012 to 7.2 million in 2030

• Approx 600,000 people with dementia in the UK

• By 2030s this figure estimated to rise by 70% to around 1.1 million – 2% of the population

• Dementia = a normal experience for a wide range of people

• “Normal living is doing things – meaningful engagement in normal life” Alex Walker, NHS Lancashire

• Moving away from deficit driven models of care to care that is more intuitive and reflective

• Supporting people to lead full lives where they are able to make decisions for themselves and / or take charge

Dementia and Creativity

• Creative areas of the brain are generally the last to retain function

• Lack of research / evidence base especially in the longer term

• Research agenda is starting to pick up

• Much of care about management of expressive behaviour

• Pharmacological versus non-pharmacological approaches to this

“People have a desperate need for human connection and interaction. If people can communicate they are no longer alone”

Naomi Foil

Validation Therapy

Where does creativity come in?

• Creativity as a mechanism to build communities / relationships and expressing identity

• “Arts with mystery, meaning making, inspiration” Ann Basting

• “Creativity as a way of making meaning” McKnight and Black – The Abundant Community

• Creativity with intrinsic value that we often don’t fully understand

• Capacity to create meaningful participatory social roles

• Communicate through differences

• Make links between individual and community

• “Something new added to the world that has value” Gene Cohen

• Liz Postlethwaite

• liz@smallthings.org.uk

• creativeages.org.uk