Arts in Health Update Case Studies Aging-Related Diseases

Engagement in the arts can be a critical tool to help people cope with illness and improve their outlook and quality of life. Engagement in the arts also decreases isolation and builds community not only for the person living with an illness, but for family and caregivers.

Aging-related diseases cut across social, ethnic, and economic boundaries. However, there is a wide gap in services and quality of life for aging populations in New York between those with financial resources and those without. Support from the Illumination Fund has helped organizations serve more people, build capacity within their organizations, and level the playing field.

In the national poll that the Illumination Fund commissioned, 82% believe the arts are helpful in coping with age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, in contrast to 18% who believe the arts are not helpful.

Programs for adults with Alzheimer’s and their caregivers use art observation and art-making to provide positive emotional and cognitive experiences, enhance verbal and non-verbal communication, and reduce isolation
Dance and movement classes for people with Parkinson’s disease and their care partners improve balance, cognition, motor skills, mental health, and physical confidence
Hospital artists in residence contribute to a richer employee and patient experience and cultivate empathy and communication between patients and their healthcare providers

The arts can help address isolation for caregivers and patients, and provide important stimulation and activity. Credit: Arts & Minds

ARTS & MINDS

General Support

Dementia can be a highly stigmatizing and isolating disease. Symptoms range from mild to severe and affect a person’s cognitive abilities including memory and learning, as well as feelings, behaviors, and relationships.[LINK] Research has shown that arts programming can help address issues of stigma, break down isolation for caregivers and patients, and provide important stimulation and activity.

In 2010 Carolyn Halpin-Healy, a seasoned art historian, and Dr. James Noble, a Columbia University neurologist, founded Arts & Minds to improve quality of life for people living with memory loss, Alzheimer’s disease, and other dementias through engagement with art.

“There are oftentimes many years before late-stage dementia where people are able to engage in life and many activities. And if they do so, their symptoms seem to plateau a bit. The acceleration of the symptoms slows down,” Halpin-Healy said. “That’s part of what we’re after.”

In 2010, about 5 million Americans were living with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias. It’s now nearly 7 million, with about 11 million family members and friends providing mostly unpaid care for those living with dementia.[LINK]

In the Arts & Minds model, the care partners participate alongside the individuals they support, gaining the training needed to encourage and facilitate continued creative activity outside of the session. This approach not only strengthens their bond but also increases the impact of the model.

Population

Older Adults, Caregivers

Discipline

Visual Art

First grant

2018

The Illumination Fund and Arts & Minds

“In 2017, when we were conducting research into the state of arts in health in New York City, we discovered Arts & Minds. We reached out to them early, quickly understanding how their work was transformative,” said Rick Luftglass. “From our first discussions, we saw that our support could help them scale up to reach larger and more diverse audiences.”

Luftglass noted that “programs existed at a few museums across the country — the Museum of Modern Art’s Meet Me at MoMA was a pioneer — but sometimes the museums have difficulty reaching diverse audiences.” He explains that “art museums have been making progress, but they were not typically seen as accessible for poor and underserved communities, nor those whose first language is Spanish. These were actual and perceived barriers to entry.”

To engage with targeted populations, Arts & Minds works closely with specific museum partners in New York City. The Studio Museum in Harlem is the organization’s founding partner and is known internationally for championing the work of Black artists. Another community anchor, El Museo del Barrio, is a leading Latinx cultural center located in East Harlem. In partnership with El Museo del Barrio, Arts & Minds developed Arts & Minds En Español, New York’s first Spanish-language museum program for people living with memory loss.

Arts & Minds prioritizes cultural institutions within Black and Latinx communities, as these populations often experience higher rates of dementia, along with a lack of resources. These programs not only help people with dementia, they also help to reduce the stigma of dementia among those working in cultural spaces and in the community at large.

“I really believe that every museum in the country should throw open their doors to people with dementia and their care partners,” said Halpin-Healy. “We can help them do that.”

Hover or click each decade to reveal the enormous growth

Arts & Minds Sessions

During an Arts & Minds workshop, participants gather around a work of art for a dialogue of response and interpretation. “Some people may have a lot to say and are able to articulate it. Others may be quiet and respond with facial expressions or movements,” Noble explained. After the dialogue, participants engage in an art-making activity related to the themes of the discussion.

“It’s a learning activity. You may come in with your own opinion, or with no opinion, and your understanding of a work of art may shift because of what you’ve heard others say,” Halpin-Healy said. “So, helping people think and share is something that art offers us, and it opens doors to really challenging subjects.”

“As my husband descends into dementia,” one care partner said, “he has lost the ability to structure his days and find meaningful activity. It is incredibly helpful to have a scheduled event in the day that is gentle yet stimulating and involves creative thought as well as active artistic effort. They give us something to look forward to doing together.”

Care partners have been a core part of Arts & Minds sessions since the inception of the program. In 2023, Arts & Minds expanded its support for care partners by launching a support group that now meets monthly at The Met, led by Halpin-Healy and board member/social worker Joyce Visceglia. This diverse group of care partners participates in meditation, explores art in the museum’s galleries, and receives psychosocial support, all while connecting with others facing similar challenges.

“Dementia is a social justice issue. People are stigmatized and marginalized, no matter where they are on the socioeconomic ladder, no matter where they are in terms of racial and ethnic diversity. These, together with the fact that some communities are more heavily affected by dementia, ties into everything else we care about in terms of equity and fairness.”

Carolyn Halpin-Healy,
Co-founder and Executive Director
Arts & Minds

The Pandemic +

The Pandemic

In March 2020, it became clear very early that a shutdown was imminent, and as an epidemiologist, Dr. Noble knew the impact this would have on older residents, including families affected by dementia. Halpin-Healy and her team quickly pivoted programming online. As museums began to shutter their doors, Arts & Minds premiered its first online class.

Arts & Minds expanded programming during the pandemic, varying the format to include movement, music, and virtual studio visits with practicing artists. Through 2022, Arts & Minds offered four programs per week in English and at least one per week in Spanish to help those during the lonely and uncertain time.

“Our commitment has always been to accompany our participants through their individual journeys of life with dementia. I’m really proud that our diverse and amazing team of teaching artists was able to do that. We were fortunate to have the support of an amazing board and generous funders, who really stepped up during the COVID-19 crisis,” Halpin-Healy reflected.

Arts & Minds retained its partnership with museums online, enhancing the participant experience with high-quality digital images provided by those partners. The diversity of the artworks from El Museo del Barrio, the Studio Museum, The Jewish Museum, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, both online and in-person, allows participants from underrepresented communities to see themselves represented and feel empowered to take part in the discussion.

“Having an online option for an Arts & Minds program is better for some than physically going to a museum because we get so tired these days,” one program participant said.

Indeed, studies have demonstrated that online participation increases accessibility and has the potential to bring programming to audiences worldwide, especially to those in remote or isolated places.

Halpin-Healy and Dr. Noble shared their learnings in the journal Dementia, as co-authors of “Online gallery facilitated art activities for people with dementia during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond: A narrative review.”

Impact and Studies +

Impact and Studies

Halpin-Healy and her colleagues continuously evaluate the program:

“We experience it together, we observe what happens, we see how it affects individuals, and that has an immediate effect on our practice. We take feedback from each session and modify the program to help as many people as possible, especially those most marginalized. If we can share what we’ve learned, share the practice, share the approach, share all the research we’ve gathered and give that away, then museums anywhere will be able to use that to grow their own programs and meet the needs of their local communities. That’s our vision,” Halpin-Healy said.

Arts & Minds believes that sharing its work and teaching other museums how to create and run their own dementia-supportive programs will generate more research interest in this critical area. Having a broader infrastructure of large-scale programs will provide opportunities for study and more comprehensively demonstrate the benefits of these programs.

Dr. Noble notes that although studies of people with dementia are expanding, many of the studies have small sample sizes. Adding them all together shows a consistent set of positive findings, but they remain limited by the sizes of the individual studies. It’s essential to build the research base so that it is robust enough for the medical community.

Arts & Minds has served as a platform for multiple research studies. One such study gave medical students a survey of their attitudes and knowledge of dementia. After the initial survey, students took part in an Arts & Minds program and then repeated the survey afterwards. The results suggested a favorable increase in the medical students’ attitudes about dementia, especially around comfort with persons with dementia.[LINK]

For many of the medical students, this was their first experience with someone who has dementia outside of a hospital or clinic. Arts & Minds gave these future doctors the opportunity to see firsthand the stages of dementia, and more importantly, that the experience can be filled with joy, laughter, and art. In addition to this change in perspective, several students, after experiencing Arts & Minds, choose to go into fields such as geriatrics or neurology.

Arts & Minds undertook another study inspired by the Studio Museum security staff’s expressions of generosity, awe, and kindness for the Arts & Minds participants. Arts & Minds wanted to know, “what was it about the program that excited staff at the Museum, even though none of them participated in the workshops?”

“We learned that they began to appreciate the Studio Museum as a space of social inclusion and belonging. We learned that it improved organizational pride. Museum staff were touched by the fact that the doors were open to older adults, and that it was reaching members of the immediate community in a very meaningful way,” Halpin-Healy said.

In addition to more organizational and community pride, Studio Museum staff experienced a reduction in stigma toward those with dementia. When they are welcomed and appreciated in this way, those with dementia often feel less ostracized in society and caregivers feel empowered to help their loved ones.

Education And Training +

Education And Training

Arts & Minds is taking a leadership role in training museum and care professionals in its model. They have helped the National Gallery of Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the United States Botanic Garden to start programs. Arts & Minds also created Engaging Arts & Minds, which Halpin-Healy describes as “a self-paced, asynchronous, online learning experience to help more museums open their doors to this growing population facing life with a stigmatized, aging-related disease. The course is designed for museum educators, dementia care professionals, artists, and administrators of museums and community/senior centers.

The online platform is already proving to be a useful tool for improving and expanding practice in New York City and it has generated interest in several museums around the country that do not yet serve this population.”

The Case for Arts in Health +

The Case for Arts in Health

The field of Creative Aging, based on engaging in and learning about the arts as we age, has been gaining traction and providing all kinds of ways to experience joy through the arts. Traditionally geared towards the general population of “well elders,” efforts to bring the arts to the lives of people living with dementia have sometimes been overlooked. “We would like to see funders in the fields of arts, health, and the needs of older adults understand and support the tremendous opportunity to improve the quality of life for everyone as we get older by connecting with art and in museums,” said Halpin-Healy. “There’s a lot of life to be lived and we hope Arts & Minds can help keep people out of nursing homes and living comfortably at their homes for longer.”

Dr. Noble noted, “with about one in six of us facing dementia if we live to age 65, it is an unfortunate fact of life that even if not ourselves, then a close friend or family member is likely to develop it. It is a common experience for all of us one way or another as we age. Working together to provide more opportunities for creative engagement can only help support how we age in many ways, including as we face dementia.”

Funding arts within dementia and aging-related health initiatives not only affects those living with dementia. It also affects the people who care for them and can help to improve their quality of life both personally and as caregivers. “So many of us have parents, grandparents, or other loved ones who’ve developed Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia,” said Luftglass. “We can relate. It’s very personal.”

Support from the Illumination Fund helped

Arts and Minds to:

Expand its program to Spanish-speakers
Move its programming online
Develop Engaging Arts & Minds, an online training course for museum professionals

Measuring Impact +

Measuring Impact

Grantee-Level:

In 2023, Arts & Minds:

Conducted 180 public programs, online and in person, for approximately 1,534 participants, averaging 12 programs per month. Of those, four per month were conducted in Spanish (Arts & Minds en Español) by native speakers — artists, art historians, and educators. Museum partners include: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, El Museo del Barrio, Studio Museum in Harlem, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Jewish Museum, and Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Facilitated an additional 65 community partnership and outreach programs serving an additional 307 participants
Advanced Engaging Arts & Minds, an online resource and training program to share its methodology beyond its NYC network

Partnerships +

Partnerships

Arts & Minds has partnered with 14 museums to provide free programming, conducted training and professional for staff at 18 museums and cultural sites. Additionally, Arts & Minds provides programming for older adults in community and residential settings. Partners include:

Select a year to see the growth in museum partnerships

Arts & Minds partners with museums to serve people with dementia and their care partners

CARINGKIND

connect2culture®

Issue

People living with Alzheimer’s Disease and other forms of dementia are frequently isolated and stigmatized, especially those in vulnerable communities. They and their caregivers, often family members, may have difficulty accessing quality care and other services.

The Experience +

The Experience

Dance for PD® classes begin with a room full of dancers, who are often 60 or older and who are often assisted with walkers or wheelchairs, stretching their arms while seated and listening to live music — drums, piano, or small combos. Care partners often join the session. Teachers design the classes using movements to address specific difficulties that patients are experiencing, although the class is not structured as therapy; throughout, teachers emphasize creativity, artistry, expression, and community. Participants engage in dance as an art form.

The classes are not just about Parkinson’s — they also provide a supportive environment.

“It is a chronic condition that one contends with for decades,” said David Leventhal, a founder and now program director of Dance for PD®: “If you’re not careful, your whole identity ends up being given over to the disease.”

Classes provide a community that counteracts the social isolation that can accompany Parkinson’s.

Global Expansion +

Global Expansion

Because Mark Morris is a touring company, company members who also taught Dance for PD® organically took the course on the road with them.

“In the early 2000s,” Leventhal said, “this was totally novel. There was not a lot of opportunity for people with Parkinson’s to come together and move in any discipline.”

So, as the Mark Morris Dance Company traveled to residencies around the world, it began offering Dance for PD® classes as well. During these residencies, participants expressed eagerness to continue Dance for PD®.

Realizing the demand, Leventhal decided to train local teachers to sustain the program in their own communities, leading to the launch of Dance for PD®’s international program.

Today, Dance for PD® has a global presence, with nearly 400 sites worldwide, robust virtual programming, on-demand videos, Zoom classes, and extensive teacher training programs.

Transformation and Impact +

Transformation and Impact

In a disease like Parkinson’s, the “cure vs. care” model presents a tension. Where arts in health comes in, Leventhal explained, Dance for PD® is on the care side. “Parkinson’s,” Leventhal explained, “is a neurodegenerative disease. It goes in one direction.” Care is critical for managing everyday symptoms and for living well and with dignity.

The Dance for PD® team understood the impact of the program from the start. Teachers see the transformation that happens between the first five minutes of class and the last five minutes of class. Parkinson’s can affect and freeze facial expressions and movement. During class, Leventhal watches participants “express themselves more freely — through their voices, through their faces, and through their bodies.”

In the words of one participant: “I love these classes. They are different from other dance classes because they are intellectually and artistically challenging. The most amazing thing about this class is that I remember quite a bit of the movements that go into the choreography. It is so wonderful to have these activities on a near daily basis.”

Of course, this came as no surprise to Leventhal.

“If you went into a lab and tried to design a really effective and compelling experience for people with this particular challenge, you would come out with something that looks a lot like dance.”

Building Evidence +

Building Evidence

In the early days, Dance for PD® struggled to make the case of the program’s impact to professionals and clinicians in the field. The team gathered anecdotal evidence and participants shared their experiences with their neurologists. A doctor admitted: “Secretly, I love what you’re doing, but I could never talk about this at my practice because people would think that I am recommending something that is frivolous: dance.”

As the program grew, the conversation shifted. Neurologists hearing about the impact of dance from their patients began attending classes for themselves. “The neurologists actually saw it with their own eyes, what happened to their own patient. The same person who was shuffling in their office and having trouble with balance — in class, she was walking the floor,” Leventhal said. “Seeing was believing.”

Beginning in 2008, systematic research began to materialize. One study, published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, found that after even a single class, patients were able to move their limbs more easily, tap their fingers, and change their facial expressions.[LINK]

Dance for PD® is now named in 48 peer-reviewed studies about the impact of dance on people with Parkinson’s disease.[LINK] There are a number of randomized control trials on dance, including the Motor Control Dance research project, led by researchers from Columbia University and Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. As the research emerged, bridging the gap between the arts and science, neurologists began to refer patients to Dance for PD®.

This shifted the entire environment for Parkinson’s care. Now, from the point of diagnosis, doctors prescribe patients an exercise regimen alongside medication. Dance is now one of the four physical activities specifically recommended by the American College of Sports Medicine for people with Parkinson’s.

As of 2023, physicians and physical therapists are requesting Dance for PD® programs on-site, and health insurance is starting to get involved. Treating Parkinson’s in the US costs an estimated $14 billion annually, with indirect costs like lost productivity adding another $6.3 billion. These figures are expected to rise as the population ages, with Parkinson’s diagnoses projected to double by 2040. Dance can help reduce these costs — Kaiser Permanente has begun funding Dance for PD® programs in San Francisco.