Background: Exposure to the arts is vital to our quality of life, providing opportunities for social connection, engagement with past hobbies and perhaps most essentially in providing the potential for enhanced means of expression. For individuals with dementia and their care-givers, access to the arts can be challenging.
Method: This article describes a pilot program designed to enhance access by people with dementia and to provide deeper engagement with artists, therapist s and caregivers. Participants attended music and theater performances with caregivers, then attended workshops designed to deepen the experience. Workshops grouped participants by severity of dementia and measurements of engagement during and after the program were developed to assess the efficacy of the pilot program.
Results: Enhanced quality of life was noted for people with dementia and the caregivers who attended the programs with them.
Conclusion: This project, the first of its kind, is a starting point. There has not been another to integrate professional musicians of varying genres, with people in the community with Alzheimer' s, and most particularly, by providing after-performance groups that assisted members' processing. Designing programs incorporating the arts as applicable to community-based institutions may expand their impact.
Keywords: Community music; dementias; music.