[Creative therapy options for patients with dementia--a systematic review].
The specifics of creative therapies aim at activating the creative potential of the patients in the sense of acceptance, orientation and coping with their illness "dementia" and at improving their quality of life. Creative therapies in the treatment of dementia offer the advantage of working with these patients, whose cognition and often also verbal communication skills are affected in a nonverbal way. This article presents a systematic review of studies and case studies, which could be found on the subject of the implementation of active creative therapies "music-, art-, drama- and dance-therapy" within the following databases (05/05): Medline, Psyndex Plus, PsychInfo and Cochrane. The search terms used were: "Creativ* and therapy and dementia and (stud*)", "Dance therapy and dementia", "Music therapy and dementia", "Drama therapy and dementia" and "Art therapy and dementia". As a result of this search we found seven quantitative evaluated controlled studies, three prae-post comparisons and three qualitative evaluated studies which have been finished since 1998. All of these studies included groups of at least three participants. Further reviews are mentioned in this article. This survey of studies on creative therapies for patients with dementia shows positive effects like the improvement of interaction skills. The data supplied thus supports the approach of using creative therapies in order to help patients accept dementia as their illness and finally to cope with it. The methodical approach to the registration of the therapies' effects and process-orientated contents of the therapy create a field of tension, leading to the request for a further development and validation of instruments, which allow the quantitative evaluation of parameters like liveliness, agility and interaction skills.
Schmitt
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Abteilung für Gerontopsychiatrie, Zentralinstitut für Seelische Gesundheit, Mannheim. beateschmitt@web.de
Frölich
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D000368:Aged; D001155:Art Therapy; D003614:Dance Therapy; D003704:Dementia / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D004324:Drama; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008875:Middle Aged; D009147:Music Therapy; D011613:Psychotherapy