People We Serve • 187Humanities at the George Washington University Medical Center (Cohen, 2001, 2007). The
therapeutic power of the arts has been dramatically demonstrated by the Creativity and
Aging Study, which has examined “the influence of participatory art programs on the gen-
eral health, mental health, and social activities of older people.”^3
Only a year into the two-year study in which matched groups of elders were assessed on
a variety of measures, it was clear that those involved in the arts programs were benefiting.
They had better overall health, fewer doctor visits, lower medication usage, fewer falls, less
loneliness, better morale, and were involved in more activities.^4 The data confirm what
artists, art educators, and art therapists have known for so long: that being involved in the
exciting and rewarding activity of making art improves health and prevents illness.
Parenthetically, art can help in assessment too, since drawings may show the extent and
nature of organic impairment. Both the diagnostic and the therapeutic value of art therapy
for older adults are described by a group of experienced authors who have worked with this
population (Magniant, 2004). When Words Have Lost Their Meaning (Abraham, 2004) is by
an Israeli art therapist who worked with those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, a loss of
the self that is painful for both individuals and their families.
But even when there are no more words, there is still the capacity to respond to one of the
nonverbal art forms, music. Mala Betensky, a brilliant art therapist who wrote two wonder-
ful books about her work with children (1973, 1995) ended her life in a residence for those
with Alzheimer’s. A proud woman, she was aware of her deteriorating condition when the
disease began, and would not let me come to visit because she was ashamed. Her daughter,
however, visited until the end. At the funeral she spoke with warmth of how the activity
that most calmed her mother in her final days was listening to Yiddish lullabies that she had
sung to Aya when she was a little girl.
In another interesting story reported in the press, residents of a nursing home were taken
to a museum to look at the artwork. The docents explained, as usual, things about the his-
tory and the artists. What was unexpected, however, was that some of the elderly viewers
Figure 8.17 “I’m Into Art Therapy” by Elizabeth Layton.