Elsevier

The Lancet Neurology

Volume 3, Issue 2, February 2004, Pages 119-123
The Lancet Neurology

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Lending a helping eye: artists in residence at a memory clinic

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-4422(03)00665-3Get rights and content

Summary

An artist-in-residence programme at the Capital Health Memory Clinic in Halifax, Canada, was established 6 years ago. The artists contribute to the clinic's academic mission by helping to describe how Alzheimer's disease treated by cholinesterase inhibitors is providing a better understanding of human cholinergic neurotransmission. The artists also contribute to the clinical programme by helping to establish a therapeutic ambience, and by allowing clinicians to see themselves through their patients' eyes. The artist programme has inspired a design initiative for the improvement of the physical environment for older patients, and has created a unique art collection that is becoming a resource for scholarship.

Section snippets

The seed of an idea

The idea for the artist-in-residence programme came from Ghost, an oil painting on canvas by Jennifer Hiscox (figure 1). Jennifer grew up with a father who had early onset Alzheimer's disease, at a time when such an illness was commonly thought of as more shameful than tragic. Years later, long after he had died, she came across a photograph of her father. Jennifer later wrote that she was overwhelmed to see that he was looking at her “like fathers should look at daughters”, whereas all she

Getting it right

We knew we needed help after the reception given to Memory (figure 2), a large (168 cm by 91 cm) painting-also by Jennifer Hiscox-hung in a public corridor across from some hospital administration offices and away from the clinic. Within 48 h of it having been hung, “several people” had gone into the administration offices to complain of the painting's apparently proabortion message, and a hospital bed sheet was draped over the painting for 2 days, until a notice explaining its meaning was hung

Planning for the future

Memory showed us another role for the artist-in-residence programme. “Quality assurance” is a term that describes many administrative activities the relation of which to the improvement of patients' care can be difficult for the untrained eye to discern. This is, perhaps, because the sorts of questions asked in patient-centred questionnaires are either beyond the scope of the programme or outside the concern of the health-care team. By contrast, the work of the artist-in-residence can

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    Improving clinical descriptions to understand the effects of dementia treatment: consensus recommendations

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