Researchers at the University of Newcastle will investigate how the creative arts can support healthy brains and healthy minds as we age and prevent the onset of diseases such as dementia.
The multi-disciplinary research team, led by Associate Professor Helen English, has secured a $75,000 Dementia Australia Research Foundation grant to run the comparative research study, investigating the specific effects of art-making and songwriting on the brain and the subsequent cognitive and emotional processes in older adults.
The project aims to identify the important ingredients of creative activity programs that drive benefits in well-being, with an interdisciplinary team including Dr Sharon Savage, Dr Michelle Kelly and Professor Frini Karayanidis accompanying Professor English on her research quest.
“In this research, our team is driven by the need to find out what can help people sustain healthy brains and how to keep their brains active,” Professor English said.
“We already know that physical exercise helps, so we’re really interested to know what is special about creative activities to help people ward off dementia.
“Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, we know how terrible it was for a lot of older adults, stuck in aged care with not a lot of stimulation, so we’re very keen to develop programs which do help people living with dementia.”
Professor English said creative arts activities helped engage thinking, emotions, creativity and imagination and complemented physical activity to promote well-being in older adulthood.
In a previous pilot study, Professor English linked creative activity with a significant increase in positive emotions, sense of accomplishment and other cognitive benefits.
“This new project is special because we’re comparing songwriting and art-making specifically,” Professor English said.
“We’ve been doing songwriting because we were really interested in whether older adults could engage in songwriting if they have never done anything musical before, and we found they could.
“In this new study, we’ll look at the impact of creating music rather than just singing along or listening to music … while the simple act of listening is positive, we thought it would be interesting to know whether people writing songs had even more benefit.”
She said music was among the most powerful triggers for dementia patients and was one of the last memories patients lost.
“There’s a lot of research into the impact of music – it has this incredible power to bring back memories for people living with dementia,” she said.
“We are doing group songwriting as well, so people are having to accommodate each other and listen and share stories.
“We’ll be then comparing that to art-making, so it’ll be interesting to see whether art-making as a creative activity has the same sort of impact as being creative, or if there’s something specifically effective about music or art that you don’t find in the other.”
Researchers will also study how long-lasting the impacts of creative activity are and how regularly courses have to be conducted to have an impact.
Professor English explained that the programs were usually tested first with healthy older adults.
They provide a baseline of how healthy people respond to arts and inform which effective programs are then delivered.
Professor English said that no matter how rewarding the project was, it had not been without its challenges.
“Working across music, psychology, and art is really rewarding, and it’s great to be part of the team, although it’s also quite challenging because we have different ways of researching and we have to learn each other’s ways of doing things,” Professor English said.
Another challenge she outlined was the team’s ability to secure aged care facilities and communities willing to run the project during the pandemic.
Despite the challenges, Professor English is hopeful the study would improve dementia patients and their families.
In conjunction with the study, Professor English and her team will complete this year’s Memory Walk and Jog at Speers Point on March 27 to raise money for further Dementia Research.
Maia O’Connor