Creative Engagement Through the Arts as Health Care for Older People: Potential and Problems Provoked
University of Toronto, T-Space | ON | 2011
Ezra Houser

« Programs that use the arts to engage older people promote health, foster community, and give voice and legacy to participants. Creative practice in health care settings facilitates emotional, mental, and physical wellness for participants and staff, while improving the culture of care. Yet there is resistance to arts-in-medicine as a legitimate tool of health care. The predominant biomedical paradigm privileges quantitative assessment methods over qualitative studies which may accept anecdotal, arts-informed, or “common sense” evidence. Successful creative programs face challenges translating their benefits when evaluated inappropriately. This arts-informed inquiry uses creative writing to address multiple dimensions of knowing, integrating autoethnographical insights from work as a caregiver, artist, educator, and administrator of collaborative art. Serendipity and imagination in research were employed to explore how collaborating artists can facilitate creative engagement for elders, embodying preventative, community-based medicine to successfully address and transform myriad challenges and opportunities as the population continues to age. »

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