Atelier Mends Art Blog

Self-portrait by artist William Utermohlen, 1967

(click on the images to enlarge them)

Today is World Alzheimer’s Day and while there is still no cure, its symptoms can be delayed or somewhat alleviated – through art.  And a recent documentary, narrated by Olivia de Haviland, tells how.

According to an article by Pamela Dittmer McKuen in Make It Better Magazine, Hilda Gorenstein, an accomplished artist, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in the early 1990s. “Hilgos”, as she was known, became increasingly withdrawn as the disease progressed, until the day her daughter asked her if she would like to paint again. 

"Self-Portrait - Red", 1996, shortly after Utermohlen's diagnosis of Alzheimer's

 “Yes, I remember better when I paint,” Hilgos replied, her face lighting up.

Her daughter, Berna Huebner, contacted the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago, from which Hilgos had graduated, and was able to recruit several art student volunteers to spend time with her mother and encourage her to create some 200 paintings before her death in 1998.

“Painting helped my mother reconnect to life,” Ms Huebner says in the same article.  “It gave her more identity and dignity and helped her regain some of her communication skills.

Ms Huebner has since become an advocate of art therapy to help Alzheimer’s patients, founding the Hilgos Foundation (website address below).  She also spent ten years creating a documentary, “I Remember Better When I Paint”.

It is the first on how art and other creative therapies can help people with Alzheimer’s; just as important, it also talks about how these approaches can change the way we look at the disease. In the documentary Yasmin Aga Khan, Alzheimer’s Disease International president, tells her own personal experience of her mother, who had Alzheimer's and also painted.  Renowned neurologists also explain how a sense of personality, identity and dignity can be brought back to life, as creative activities engage the areas of the brain not yet affected by

 "Self-Portrait - Green", 1997, by William Utermohlen

the disease; indeed, as Robert C. Green, a neurologist at Boston University, explains, Alzheimer’s does not affect the brain all at once, starting in the parts of the brain that are important for laying down new memory.  It is only much later that the disease damages the part of the brain involving creativity; as Sam Gandy of Mount Sinai describes it, the parietal lobe is affected quite late by Alzheimer’s, yet is stimulated by creative work.

This lobe is comprised of a left and right hemisphere. The left hemisphere is more important for right handers and is involved in symbolic functions in language and mathematics. The right hemisphere is more important for left handers and is responsible for carrying out images and understanding maps, or more precisely, spatial relationships. Damage to the right hemisphere of this lobe results in the loss of imagery, visualization of spatial relationships and neglect of left side space and the left side of the body. Even drawing may be neglected from the left side. Damage to the left hemisphere of this lobe means problems in mathematics, long reading, writing and understanding symbols. The parietal association cortex enables individuals to read, write, and solve mathematical problems.

Art therapist Ruth Abraham, author of When Words Have Lost Their Meaning: Alzheimer's Patients Communicate Through Art (Praeger Publishers, 2004), lays out several important ways that art therapy helps greatly affected patients:

-      *In offering new, non-verbal ways to communicate

-       *Improving concentration by focusing on what remains rather than what is lost

-       *Calming and improving mood, as the patient either does or views art

-       *Creating closer relationships, essential for the patient’s sense of self.

The most important takeway from the documentary, however, is the change in how we see these patients.  As Judy Holstein, a care center director says, Alzheimer’s patient “still have imaginations intact, all the way, to the very very end.”

This painting in 2000 was his next to last piece; Utermohlen's final painting was erased and never completed.

Visit the Hilgos Foundation website and view the documentary trailer here:

http://irememberbetterwhenipaint.wordpress.com/about

Purchase this important documentary on DVD here:

http://www.amazon.com/REMEMBER-BETTER-WHEN-PAINT/dp/B003U...