According to the German Alzheimer's Society, almost two million people in Germany are affected by dementia. It is currently not possible to stop or even cure the disease. In addition, medication to alleviate symptoms is hardly successful. Researchers from the School of Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine at TUD Dresden University of Technology have therefore been looking for a new approach to improve the quality of life of those affected and their relatives. Over a total period of three years, they investigated whether and how regular visits to museums can improve the general condition of dementia patients with the "Erinnerungs_reich" project in cooperation with the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (Dresden State Art Collections). On March 14, they presented the results at a symposium in Dresden.

Around 80 percent of the almost two million people suffering from dementia in Germany are cared for at home. As there is currently no prospect of a cure, treatment focuses on reducing the psychological and somatic stress associated with the disease. It is also essential to support family caregivers.

"Our primary aim with this study was to strengthen the idea of prevention. We wanted to examine how those affected can remain active and healthy for as long as possible with low-threshold and easy-to-implement measures," explain the study leaders Dr. Karen Voigt, sociologist and health scientist as well as research coordinator in the field of general medicine at TU Dresden, and Dr. Michael Wächter, physician, theologian, art historian and project manager of "Erinnerungs_reich".

Other countries are further ahead than Germany in this respect. The Museum of Modern Art in New York already investigated the effect of museums on dementia patients at the beginning of the millennium. In the UK, chronically ill people can have a visit to a museum prescribed by their GP. The only German study to date was "Artemis", a project with the Städel Museum in Frankfurt/Main, which investigated the effect of museum visits followed by art workshops. "In view of the limited resources of museums, especially in rural areas, this approach didn't seem to be effective," explains Wächter. The Dresden study focused on the comparative investigation of guided and non-guided museum visits over a period of ten weeks in twelve groups.

At the end of the study, Voigt and Wächter can draw a positive conclusion. "On the one hand, we were able to train 33 museums throughout Saxony - both in the independent cities and in almost all districts - to be dementia-sensitive and develop a guide for museum visits by people with dementia together with them," says Voigt. Secondly, the results of the study with 102 participants show that the preventative approach is successful. "We achieved the goals of increasing the quality of life of those affected and their relatives and improving their mental health through the museum visits. According to Voigt and Wächter, the evaluation of the study showed that "the works of art enabled them to connect to individual worlds of experience and memory and thus enter into conversation". Only the so-called "caregiver burden", i.e. the burden placed on relatives by caregiving, did not show any changes.

"We did not expect the results to be so clear," explains Wächter. "Our recommendation is therefore very clear: make museum visits part of standard care." This may sound unusual, Voigt admits: "However, an annual museum ticket is clearly much more effective than medication, especially when it comes to alleviating depressive symptoms in people with dementia. These are expensive but, according to current studies, do not help those affected to improve their quality of life.

"Prof. Esther Troost, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at TU Dresden, underlines the importance of preventive measures in the healthcare system: "In view of the high costs in the healthcare system, Germany urgently needs to invest more in prevention and health promotion. As Dresden University Medicine, we can make an important contribution to this with evidence-based studies. The 'Erinnerungs_reich' project shows the great benefits that preventative measures can have."

The "Erinnerungs_reich" study - museums as medicine for people with dementia

This is a randomized controlled intervention-based study in the Free State of Saxony with 102 participants consisting of 51 tandem pairs of a dementia patient and a relative. A training concept for museum staff, training materials and the publicly accessible guidelines presented at the final symposium were developed in the course of the study. 51 art educators from 33 museums throughout Saxony took part. The participatory prevention program for people with dementia and their relatives was then tested in two groups: an intervention group with dementia-sensitive museum tours and a control group without a tour.

The results were collected by means of a survey before and after the intervention (T0 and T1) and six months after the visits (T2). Caregiver burden, quality of life, well-being and overall physical and mental health were assessed.

The patron of the project is Minister of State Petra Köpping. The project funding of around 250,000 euros was provided by the Saxon Ministry of Social Affairs, Health and Social Cohesion and with funds from the statutory health insurance funds as part of the SHI Alliance for Health in Saxony (Landesrahmenvereinbarung / P. Sachsen)

The study at a glance

Contact:

Dr. med. Dr. phil. Michael Wächter, M.A.
Dr. rer. medic. Karen Voigt MPH
Head of project: Erinnerungs_reich - Museums as medicine for people with dementia
Department of General Medicine
Carl Gustav Carus Faculty of Medicine
TUD Dresden University of Technology
Tel.: +49 (0)351 458 89230
Email: ,