Development of Six Arts, a Culturally Appropriate Multimodal Nonpharmacological Intervention in Dementia.
OBJECTIVE
There is accumulating evidence for the efficacy of nonpharmacological multimodal stimulation interventions in maintaining cognition and improving quality of life in people with mild-to-moderate dementia. However, the complex nature of these interventions limits their application in practice and research. We report here the design and development of a culturally appropriate framework, the Six Arts, to guide delivery of multimodal interventions in a Chinese community.
The Six Arts are a core set of Confucian philosophy comprising 6 disciplines of rites, music, archery, charioteering, literacy, and numeracy. They correspond to major mind-body functional domains of social functioning; music and rhythm; visuospatial and fine motor skills; kinesthetic and gross motor skills; language and verbal skills; and executive function. Using Six Arts as a framework, we mapped theoretical principles and evidence-based nonpharmacological interventions of cognitive stimulation, physical exercise, and social activities against the 6 functional domains. From 2011, we field-tested the use of Six Arts in structuring intervention programs in 263 people in a dementia day center in Hong Kong.


RESULTS
The Six Arts was operationalized through the development of an intervention activity database, a scoring system for intensity level, and a service delivery model for application in dementia day centers.


CONCLUSIONS
Six Arts can be used as framework for structuring nonpharmacological group intervention programs in dementia day center in a metropolitan Chinese city. Its cultural appropriateness may facilitate communication and shared decision making with families with dementia in communities influenced by Confucian philosophy.
Sau Po Centre on Ageing, The University of Hong Kong, China. Department of Psychiatry, LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, China. ghywong@hku.hk.
Gloria H Y
GH
Wong
Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong, China.
Carmen K M
CK
Ng
School of Nursing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China.
Claudia K Y
CK
Lai
Hong Kong Alzheimer's Disease Association, China.
Maggie N Y
MN
Lee
Sau Po Centre on Ageing, The University of Hong Kong, China. Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong, China.
Terry Y S
TY
Lum
Sau Po Centre on Ageing, The University of Hong Kong, China.
Nan
N
Jiang
Hong Kong Alzheimer's Disease Association, China.
Henry W H
HW
Shie
Hong Kong Alzheimer's Disease Association, China.
Jimmy Y M
JY
Wu
Hong Kong Alzheimer's Disease Association, China. Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China.
David L K
DL
Dai
D001155:Art Therapy; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D015928:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D054521:Cultural Competency; D003704:Dementia / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D006723:Hong Kong; D006801:Humans; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology; D009146:Music; D016730:Program Development; D011788:Quality of Life; D063346:Singing
Cultural competence; Dementia; Nonpharmacological Intervention; Six Arts