more mate alright so good afternoon my
name is Eleanor fate and my big idea is
about memory especially the memory of
elders and how we can use the power of
art and music to help elders remember
and hold on to their sense of self it’s
also about the even greater power of
emotional connection now might notice
that i have some gray hairs myself and
moving towards elderhood so i may forget
some what I’m about to say and I go Phil
bear with me you can use those moments
up to have some personal connection I
also brought my own personal Proctor
instead of up here to help me help me I
happen to to lose track too much alright
so I wonder what many of you have
thought how nice it would be to have a
photographic memory I mean really
wouldn’t it be great especially when
exam time
but the fact is only a tiny fraction of
people have a true photographic memory
the vast majority of us have brains that
latch on to some memories while
consigning most to the trash heap we get
frustrated when we can’t remember what
we want to remember and then we get
ambushed by in the random memories that
just emerge like like commercial jingles
from our childhood as writer Austin
O’Malley says there it is already up
there memory is a crazy person who
trying to get it to go away there you go
thank you most of us don’t understand
what memories really are we believe that
a memory is a fixed representation of
something that happened in the past we
think that we carry our memories around
with us in our brains it was sort of
like in a sort of mental file cabinet we
have a sense of having one we possess
them as if they could call them and try
them out one by one to look at them as
if they were diary entries that had
remained unchanged ever since we first
wrote them but this is all wrong turns
out that memory as far more to do with
imagination than we like to think as
Charles fern email says in his book
pieces of light the past is a story that
we tell ourselves our memories are not
possessions but mental constructions
that we create as we are
remembering that involving many
different neurons throughout the campus
region of our brains okay so their
mental constructions they are built in
the here and now not retrieve whole from
the past and every time I remember
something we reconstructed from its
various parts and not always in the same
way not only that we unconsciously bias
our memories with emotions and
information that we acquire after the
event that we’re remembering so in this
way our memories are really not very
reliable even so it’s hard to imagine
ourselves without them who would we be
without our memories for most of us our
memories our core part of our identity
without our marriage we even have any
sense of self at all these requests is
that I began asking about memory once my
mother began news in cars first it was
just short-term memories the Bennett
ruins and longer term memories like
remembering her childhood on a fruit
farm in New Jersey where she grew up
memories of her three sisters even
memories of her parents started to go
when I visited her she described to me
what it was like to be gradually
losing her memories it’s like I’m on a
small island in the midst of a seat she
said and there’s a fog bank wrong again
I used to be able to see all the way out
to the horizon but now the fog keeps
coming closer and closer and I can see
only a little way ahead and that little
way ahead keeps shrinking and shrinking
hearing this help me understand what the
experience of losing her memory was like
for my mom but it also made me feel
helpless I wanted to be able to scan on
the shore of that room painted with her
and somehow blow the fog back at least
for a moment but I had no idea that this
was possible a few months later my
mother died that was when I began to
really learn more and read more about
I wish taking my proper I wish I had
known earlier what I have since learned
about how art and music can reach into
and revitalize others with memory loss
the effect can be almost miraculous so
most care centers in the United States
for people with Alzheimer’s and other
forms of dementia operate on a medical
model the medical model focuses on the
person’s deficits and tries to fix them
usually with medications now there are
some medications that help slow memory
loss but there is no medication yet
developed that actually reverses the
process of forgetting when you go into
these facilities for people with
Alzheimer’s and long-term dementia what
you often see is people just sitting day
after day hour after hour constantly
sitting with little or no agency in
their lives there all the interactions
with people who are paid to take care of
their physical needs it’s easy to see
how in this situation a person who could
begin to lose their sense of who they
are but a new model of dementia care is
emerging a much more positive model
instead of focusing on a person’s
deficits focuses on what they’re already
doing and tries to build on that through
participation in creative arts creative
arts because the creative cards drawn
parts of the brain that are still
relatively
intact in most people with dementia the
big idea in this approach is to use the
arts to engage and connect with people
it’s based on the idea that no matter
how many memories they lost an essential
piece of whom they always were still
remains since memory turns out to be as
much about imagination it’s about exact
factual recall it makes sense that the
creative arts can be an avenue for
recovering memories music music classes
where in which elders are encouraged to
sing and play instruments drawing a
storytelling painting poetry these are
all modalities that draw on parts of the
brain that are least impaired in people
with dementia research as an increasing
body of research has shown in fact that
owners who participate in arts
activities experience less stress more
energy they’re happier they feel more
connected to the world and they have an
overall better quality of life I wish I
had known about this research when my
mother
still alive she would always been an
unusually creative and imaginative
person and I think if I could try to
engage her with clay or pain both
mediums that she’d working she was
younger I think it would have energized
her and maybe brought back some of her
memories listening to music as an
especially can be especially beneficial
to people with dementia even to people
who have an extremely advanced dementia
many of you make machines or may be
familiar with this video that I’m about
to show QQ thank you um about a man
named Henry notice what happens to Henry
when we first hears the music depressed
I’m sponsor and almost there is ever an
iPod containing we know his favorite
music
so this video and what I was learning
about music and art inspired me to
develop a course at arcadia university
for the honors program called music art
and memory I wanted to put these claims
to the test locally so fair game care
center is less than two miles away from
Arcadia but it’s a world away it’s the
world of the very old and the very
impaired a world most of us are shielded
from in our daily lives walking in for
the first time I see Reza some residents
smiling eagerly happy to see my dog
trotting by my side while others appear
lost inside themselves but very
residents are lucky they have a director
who is open to trying new things and
activities person who works hard to get
residents engaged and connecting but
they simply don’t have enough staff to
be able to work individually one on one
of its residents to individualize
activities to tease out each resident’s
own unique stories that’s where the
arcadia class comes in its structured
around weekly visits to fair to each
student partner with an elder in varying
stages
memory loss the students need with their
elders at tables and try to make a
connection it can be awkward at first
but it’s eased by the presence of
arbitrary we’ve got crayons markers
pains colored pencils modeling clay and
the students usually are the first to
use these materials with their partners
usually to illustrate something they’re
hearing about of their conversation with
their partners we try to draw their
partners our but I’m invited of course
they’re often seeing that Ellie are
starting to use the materials to think
sometimes picking up the paintbrush for
the first time oops okay never learn
that the best night is missing um
someone’s picking up a paintbrush for
the first time to make a mark on the
page this is really thrilling to see
because they’re means that they’re
trusting the connection or their student
partner enough that they feel emboldened
to use the art materials themselves and
make their own marks oh yeah we add
music to the mix students creating
playlists individualized playlist for
their partners choosing music mostly
music that the elders that were most
sorry I’m confused by the slides
choosing elder shooting choosing music
that the elders most loved when they
revealed her in their youth as students
several songs with their elders in the
room sometimes the entire just burst
into song because they all recognized
something and we are singing it together
and it’s a marvelous feeling and you can
see their faces light up as the songs
trigger memories and emotional states
that have been excessive inaccessible
left to them for a long time just switch
through a couple of meetings because I
didn’t end up using us okay I didn’t
think they were they were on this
version so when I first conceived this
course I thought of it as a kind of
community service in which we would be
the givers and the elders would be the
receivers I thought we what we would
provide with eager attentive listeners
and opportunities to expand and extend
their and explore their memories the
elders memories this happened but the
course turned out to be much more
instead of about retrieving memories it
turned out to be much more about making
mutual emotional connections with each
other the our other part our other
partners became family members to us
without the emotional baggage and we’re
awakened through one on one engagement
connection creativity and the chance to
are some real agency in their lives okay
yes the chance to have some real agency
in their lives so yeah this kind of
intense connection that allowed the
elders to feel more deeply see known and
loved is what the course ended up really
being about more than a much more about
retrieving specific memories and it’s
this kind of intense emotional
connection that I’ve come to believe is
even more important to our sense of self
than our memories are I still wish that
I had thought to engage my mom in some
kind of clay work or painting or have
her listen to the music of her youth in
the last year’s who knows how it might
have blown the fog back a little bit
from her Island but might open in her
what memories might have come into
clearer focus but I’m very grateful that
for for the strong connection that we
had together to the end and as I won’t
wear what’s that doing there and here we
go out of order but that’s okay and as I
won’t around the activity room the
activities room and fear me watching my
students there we go watching my
students singing with their partners
making art comforting and cheering each
other on I thank my mother for the big
idea that has come to life in this
course thank you very much
a few more pictures is to show ya thang
[Applause]
[Music]
hopefully you can see in some of these
pictures the kind of connections that
students are making with their partners
and many students continue to visit with
their partners after the semester is
thank you very [Applause]