I co-presented a workshop on Creative Engagement at the American Society on Aging conference in San Francisco last week. Research shows that older adults who participate in creative actions have improved cognition and proprioception, enhanced meaning in their life, reduced loneliness, and recognition/engagement in a social life. Creativity makes brains bloom!
There were notable speakers on diverse topics, but I will highlight presentations focusing on aging brains. Maureen Nash, MD, assesses and treats behavioral disturbance in older adults with mental illness or dementia in Portland, OR, where she is Medical Director at Providence Elderplace. In 2020 she was named Clinician of the Year by the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry.
Nash’s key points are encouraging for those who fear that aging is a down-facing dog pose in life with no possible upward movement. Here are takeaway notes from an award-winning psychiatry specialist:
- It is possible to develop new synapses in older adulthood. While older adults have reduced speed in learning new information, their “bigger networks” and life experiences can lead to an increased ability for problem-solving.
- The best way to provide dementia care is to identify an individual’s unmet physical and psychological needs. Match interventions to the reasons behind their behaviors. It is possible to foster resilience in older adults with dementia.
Another session on the dementia journey focused on recovering resilience with music interventions (Vanderbilt University Music Research Institute). Music has roots in multiple branches in brains. One creative approach that includes individuals who are bed-ridden is to provide a small piano with wheels so that a pianist rolls into hospice settings, hospitals, memory centers, and rehabilitation spaces. It is important to get a playlist of familiar songs for each person. When some individuals no longer talk, they suddenly may sing along when a favorite song from their past returns them to an early memory.
Julene Johnson, PhD, at University of California, San Francisco, believes in “waking up” a person with dementia. A previous flute major, Johnson imagines a world where everyone has access to music, but especially those with dementia. Her colleague, social worker Dan Cohen, founder of the nonprofit organization Music & Memory, has a Netflix documentary that is inspiring. Check out Alive Inside: A Story of Music and Memory, to see a joy-filled intervention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9IHUPamCB4
As stated in the documentary, “Music can be a back door into the mind.” What might happen if we extended more research and focus with this gateway to the inner branching of brains in caring for older adults instead of spending millions of dollars on medical prescriptions that many physicians admit are not game changers?
Kim McCoy Wade, Senior Advisor for Aging, Disability and Alzheimer’s (Office of California Governor), recommends that everyone participate in positive aging: “Give people an action. What is your pro-aging action?”
Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz
277. What music would make your personal playlist?
278. If you have musical talent, where might you volunteer to make brains bloom?
Pearls of Peace: A Family Psychologist’s Circle-of-Life Blog 