JAMA Article

JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, a peer-reviewed medical journal published my article, on performing and creating poetry with people living with dementia. Co-author Dan Kaplan, PhD and I are thrilled! It is the most in-depth description of my theory of what is happening at the neurological level, when you are performing poetry using call and response.

The paper is a call for further research and ends with, “Reciting poetry is unlikely to change the progression of dementia, but it can help change the narrative of how unaffected individuals and society perceive dementia. Changing that narrative to include examples of creativity and moments of joy, and the tantalizing possibility that it can positively affect the consolidation of new short-term memories into long-term memories, alters the perception of dementia from an experience defined by isolation and lost personhood to one of social vitality and enduring personhood. This shift may help combat the stigma of memory loss and promote more humane and effective care environments and therapeutic strategies for working with these patients.

Here is a link to the JAMA essay

Arts in Medicine

Creativity in Elder Care
Training Medical Students in the Use of Creative Expression to Improve Elder Care
"The poem springs from the half-spoken words of such patients as the physician sees from day to day… This, in the end, comes perhaps to be the occupation of the physician after a lifetime of careful listening." -William Carlos Williams

We are excited to announce that in July 2016, we launched the The Art and Medicine Program at the University Of Arizona College Of Medicine – Phoenix and the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project (APP), based in Brooklyn, New York, provided a series of participatory arts training workshops for medical students to use creativity with elder patients. We developed a medical student curriculum entitled, “Creativity in Elder Care,” for the Art in Medicine program. The program is now in its third year.

The workshops were co-taught by Gary Glazner, founder and Executive Director of the APP, and Cynthia A. Standley, PhD, professor in the Department of Bioethics and Medical Humanism at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix.