Art and Alzheimer-Type Dementia

Non-artists with Alzheimer-type dementia created pictures as part of a biweekly (twice per week) activities program. The collages were made by residents at a long-term care facility in the Midwest and were analyzed for compositional complexity and asymmetry over the course of a three-year project. As indicated by a repeated-measures ANOVA, asymmetry did not change significantly with practice, but complexity did. Mean pictorial complexity was lower during later sessions than earlier ones. Mean asymmetry was not influenced by number of sessions (or time) in a generalizable fashion. Implications of the project for understanding the artwork of persons with dementia are discussed.