Newsmakers, August 25, 2016

The Arts and Aging-

Art can be an effective therapy as people age to keep them young, or treat trauma or illness that may be affecting one’s life.

Whether it’s singing, sculpture or going to a play, therapists and artists say the arts can play a vital role in helping someone growing old.

Just hearing or singing a song from someone’s wedding or a tune a parent used to sing to a child, music therapy can also benefit people who have anxiety, pain or a sleeping disorder.

Much has been made about treating dementia with music. It does play a therapeutic role helping to trigger memories and emotions according to music therapist Andrea Halverson from Life in Harmony in La Crosse.

“Music is very non-threatening and a way to bring back some of those memories,” she said. “A more comfortable way and a way that’s enjoyable for the client too.”

Life in Harmony is working with the La Crosse Parks and Recreation department this fall to bring young children together with senior citizens to sing songs that are starting to be lost on younger generations.

Halverson said music can also be used as a wellness activity as people age.

“Creating opportunities like a choral experience or a drum circle or percussion group to use some of those musical ways to maintain some of those skills those (older) adults have,” said Halverson. “Like using music for movement to maintain physical goals or building some of those social connections.”

Karen Misseldine of Decorah, Iowa has used physical art in her work with adults in nursing homes and behavioral health facilities for the past 16 years.

She said art therapy is used to tap into the creative side of the brain using non-verbal techniques and using one’s hands to create a piece of physical art helps connect brain waves, generate memories and experience something new.

As one ages, a sense of grief and even depression is often common for someone living in a nursing home, and Misseldine said physical art can help reduce those problems.

“A big goal in my job is to help them embrace where they are now and to see the beauty in their abilities as they can do it now,” she said. “Pushing an art material on a piece of paper connects those brain waves to keep them more vital.”

The Commonweal Theatre in Lanesboro, Minnesota is staging the play Pride’s Crossing this fall. The theme involves a look back at the life of a 90-year-old woman, flashbacks to her life decisions, with an exploration of how people are treated at different stages of their life.

The Commonweal performs each of its shows once for people who live in area nursing homes and are using Pride’s Crossing as a way to create a community dialog about issues related to growing older.

Commonweal Associate Artistic Director Adrienne Sweeney is playing the lead role in the play. She said the art of a live performance is also important to helping with the aging process.

“It’s that opportunity to be mindful for two hours and to be present with something else that is not your pain,” Sweeney said. “Whether it’s grief or actual physical pain, emotional pain, I believe it’s also that sitting in a theater being surrounded by other people, you’re all experiencing the same thing, that energy is palpable.”

Halverson, Misseldine and Sweeney were interviewed for the Wisconsin Public Radio program Newsmakers. It is part of a monthly series of issues related to an aging population that the La Crosse bureau has produced in 2016.

– John Davis