Is there a place for the arts in our modern healthcare system?

Abstract

Dulwich Picture Gallery was recently awarded an Arts and Health Award for its Good Times: Art for Older People programme. Madeline Adeane from Dulwich Picture Gallery looks at how the project is helping to reach out to isolated elderly individualsAlzheimer's and care for the elderly have become common themes in contemporary media coverage as society faces the challenges of an increasingly ageing population. Typically the angle is in condemnation of how Western society cares for its elderly. At Dulwich Picture Gallery much work is being done to try and address the problems of isolation, inertia and vulnerability faced by older people in today's society, including carrying out research to explore the impact of the arts on mental health and wellbeing. An art gallery is rarely associated with tangible impacts on health, yet this gallery has become the subject of a number of high profile scientific research projects, the findings of which demonstrate that the arts should have a place in our increasingly technically innovative and modern healthcare system. This is perhaps even more crucial with mental health issues such as dementia for which there is, as yet, no medical cure.As part of the Government's National Dementia strategy individuals are encouraged to discuss concerns with their GPs. However, at a time when there is so much criticism surrounding GP practice; including the hasty prescription of antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs and proposing medication as a quick-fix treatment, rather than patientdriven demand for pills, this may pose a challenging proposition.1 Dulwich Picture Gallery has been working with local GPs to provide a unique solution. Through Prescription for Art, an innovative strand of the Good Times: Art for Older People programme at Dulwich Picture Gallery, a sustainable channel has been developed for reaching out to isolated elderly individuals by partnering with the general practice managers and nurses at local surgeries. Practice nurses with primary responsibility for older patients agreed to identify those they felt were feeling depressed, absorbed by their medical condition or lonely, perhaps because of recent bereavement or illness, or the responsibilities of 24-hour care for a partner. These elderly patients are then 'referred' to a creative taster workshop at the Gallery.Good Times now works with well over 80 community centres of older people in London. 'Prescription for Art' has become so successful that it has its own dedicated coordinator to run the burgeoning programme along with a team of passionate volunteer helpers. It provides much needed respite for families and carers and an alternative therapy for recommendation by healthcare organizations.In 2011 the Gallery received an Arts and Health Award from the Royal Society for Public Health, highlighting the excellent outcomes that can be achieved when arts and wellbeing come together. The research publication, 'This is Living', in partnership with the Oxford Institute of Ageing, and funded by the Helen Hamlyn Trust, documenting the health benefits of the Gallery's Good Times: Art for Older People programme, also won a RSPH award in its own right as a model research document within arts and wellbeing. This document has been of international interest and the Gallery is now at a juncture where there is a need to push this learning and understanding of creative workshops for older adults beyond the Gallery.The quarterly programme of Good Times activities was completely booked within two weeks of the information being sent out, there are waiting lists for all activities and it is increasingly difficult to meet the overwhelming demand. The intention now is to train carers, group leaders, health practitioners and museum and gallery professionals to take the skills that have been developed over seven years by programme coordinators at the Gallery back to their institutions, to help community groups run their own creative and wellbeing sessions beyond their visits to Dulwich Picture Gallery. …