Kresge offers tours to emphasize art therapy

---

Tweet

With a World War II veteran hat placed high on his head, 90-year-old Ed Upton shared memories his childhood while making everyone laugh as he discussed his life at Tuesday morning’s Elder HeART tour.

Upton, along with six others on the tour, have been diagnosed with early stages of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia and came to MSU’s campus to discuss and experience the art at Kresge Art Museum.

Elder HeART tours are meant to provide hope and connect individuals and their caregivers while promoting art as a way of forming conversations to evoke memories the elderly patients don’t often experience.

The idea of Elder HeART was born from a vision of co-founder and coordinator Bonney Mayers and has been an active program at the Kresge Art Museum since fall 2009. It also is the only program of its kind offered in Michigan.

Inspired by an article she read in The New York Times a few years ago about how the Museum of Modern Art, or MoMA, helped elderly people with early Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, Mayers said she was captivated by the way art could be used as a form of therapy.

While visiting her daughter in New York, she decided to visit MoMA and saw the difference the program was making. She said that’s when she realized this was a program Kresge Art Museum could implement.

Mayers said she personally understands how art affects the health and well-being of people affected by Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, as she does elderly care for a relative.

“There are so many people our age who are looking at this down the road,” Mayers said. “The numbers are staggering, and the number of people caregiving is staggering, and they don’t have much to do that’s appropriate for their diagnosis.”

Immediately accepting the program proposal, Museum Director Susan Bandes said the passion of Elder HeART co-founders, Mayers and Betsy Fischer, would kick-start the program to success.

“It appealed to us because this is a population that is so fragile and really doesn’t have all the programs for outreach,” Bandes said. “We just felt it was a population that deserved attention.”

Mayers and Fischer began their project by flying to MoMA in New York, where they received a three-day training workshop, learning crucial teaching and touring techniques that benefit the elderly.

“People with the diagnosis tend to be less inhibited than our typical adult visitors,” Mayers said. “They say what they think more than most adults in terms of what they’re seeing and what is striking (and) we tend to laugh a lot through the tours,”

Mayer said her 74-year-old relative Fran Broadhead’s imagination and appreciation for art helped conversation flow within the group.

“I just love the arts. When I was a little girl, every Saturday we’d walk through the entire art museum in St. Louis,” Broadhead said. “I learned to appreciate art and try to delve into and see what the artist was thinking.”

Caregivers of the participants are considered to be full participants for the tour as well. Both residential facilities and individuals who care for those with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia are welcome to plan a tour.

The museum closes during the tours in order to provide a quiet, distraction free environment for tours. In addition to the two founders, museum docents dedicate their time as well, helping to personalize the occasion as participants enter an interactive learning environment.

“We never talk about the disease in the museum,” Mayers said. “It’s a socially positive shared experience that takes into consideration the cognitive impairments going on for some people in the tour.”

Tours are given through a conversational basis to provide everyone with a sense of an enriching “in the moment” experience. Museum Docent Ethel Anthony used objects for participants to pass around and experience what the artwork represented.

She lends her personal attachment to the museum’s Elder HeART program and elderly outreach program to her love of helping the elderly.

“I think I was mostly drawn to this because of my own parents who did not have dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, but (the participants) remind me of them,” she said. “Ed reminds me of my dad, and I learn so much from them.”

During Tuesday morning’s tour, five pieces of art were discussed. A still life, kinetic sculpture, noise sculpture and portrait brought seven participants out of their shell to laugh, share memories and discuss art they had never seen before.

“Some will remember everything they saw and some will remember only one or two things — we kind of live for the moment for some of our people,” said Madeline Merz, life enrichment coordinator of assisted living at Sterling House of Delta.

For more information on the Elder HeART program, visit artmuseum.msu.edu.

---