OXFORD, OHIO — For a person with dementia, coloring inside the lines of a picture can be difficult and overwhelming. But painting in watercolor offers that same person a chance to freely express themselves.
Elizabeth Lokon has developed an art program around this idea.
Lokon’s Opening Minds Through Art program pairs a dementia patient with a Miami University student each week for activities like watercolor, collage and printmaking.
“I found that, often times, people with dementia are underserved and misunderstood,” she said .
“I think people are caring and they want to do good work, good activities for people with dementia, but it seems to me they give up too soon,” she said. “They figure, ‘Oh they don’t make sense, they cant remember things,’ so they try to make things simple and when they think simple, they think of children.”
Opening Minds Through Art not only provides activities appropriate for adults, but it also promotes confidence and social relationships.
Opening Minds Through Art, which is offered weekly at the Knolls of Oxford and Adult Day Services in Oxford, will expand to seven locations by fall 2010 in Oxford, Hamilton and the Cincinnati area.
Lokon, a research associate at the Scripps Gerontology Center, originally developed the program as a thesis for her graduate studies at Miami University
After studying dementia residents in nursing homes, Lokon said the problem with many activities offered is they are “simple to the point of boring and inappropriate for people who are 80 and 90 years old.” OMA addresses a common problem in patients of being distracted and easily disoriented.
OMA seeks to increase the creative self-expression of people with dementia through a highly structured 15-step process centered on strong one-on-one relationships, which also increases the participant’s health and psychological wellbeing.
The program, which receives support from the Oxford Community Foundation, is carried out in a number of art sessions with each participant, referred to as the artist, donning an apron for an hour every Friday afternoon for the chance to create an original piece of artwork.
Because the degree of dementia ranges significantly among the participants, they are split into two groups.
Each participant is matched with a Miami student who is trained in both the basics of dementia and effective communication strategies and who serves as not only a guide throughout each session, but also as a recognizable face eager to chat or to provide moral support for the artist.
The process begins with the “huddle,” where the day’s project leaders and the students meet to discuss the art project and each resident’s wellbeing on that particular day, along with any possible concerns.
After the students partner with the artists, they are given a short amount of time to socialize and to put on nametags — which give a sense of security — and aprons.
They start by singing a song and then get a brief introduction of the day’s project and a demonstration.
“The purpose of the demonstration is to show people how easy it is,” said Lokon .
Packages of the needed materials, called gifts, are then handed out to the artists for both simplicity and as a way to entice them into the project.
“Everything is about pulling them along” Lokon said. The process is also designed to keep patients from becoming overwhelmed and shutting down.
The artists are then free to create their pieces.
Some choose to work in silence, focusing intently on their art, while others chat back and forth with their assigned student and with the group leader.
Once the pieces are finished and signed, titles are given to each piece of work, which is then shown around the rest of the room amid ample compliments and the occasional “just wait until you see mine.”
The student fills out a form gauging both their feedback on the day’s activity and how they felt their partner reacted to the activity.
Finally, a 30-minute debriefing session is held between Lokon and a few of the leaders, while the students take this time to journal about the session.
This process is essential to meeting the goals of the OMA program which, aside from promoting confidence and social interaction among those with dementia through creative self-expression, include building strong relationships between those with dementia and the staff and students, educating the public about the creative abilities of people with dementia, and contributing to scholarly literature about dementia and dementia treatment.
For more information contact Senior Solutions at (954) 456-8984 or toll free at 1-800-213-3524
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