Project code: 2021-1-IT02-KA210-ADU-000030122

ARTvsDEMENTIA - Art therapy as an empathic tool to strengthen and maintain the cognitive, physical and relational skills of people with dementia is the title of the project, implemented between 2022 and 2023, conceived and promoted by the Association AlphaZTL - Compagnia d'Arte Dinamica from Brindisi, Italy, which acted as the leader of a European partnership composed of the following realities

• Spomincica - Alzheimer Slovenia (Slovenian Association for Dementia Care);
• Athens Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Association of Athens, Greece;
• Latvijas Laikmetigas Makslas Centrs (Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art - LCCA), Latvia.

The project was financed by the Italian National Agency Erasmus+ Indire within the Erasmus+ European Small-Scale Partnerships Programme, with the aim of sharing and transferring knowledge, guidelines and procedures in the use of art therapy as a tool to stimulate learning, socialisation and the enhancement of transversal and residual skills of adults with neuro-cognitive illnesses, outside the care centres.

The project helped to develop cultural and artistic activities aimed at the elderly, who are the category of citizens with the lowest levels of participation and practice, and to support policies for active ageing and combating isolation, closure and depression, considered by the scientific community as a prelude to cognitive impairment understood in a broader sense.

The project was developed in two phases.

1. Study Visits and International Meetings: international mobility activities for the exchange of good practices concerning art-therapy applied to adults with dementia;

2. Experimental Phase: creating and experimenting an artistic intervention model combining the best practices observed during the European exchanges and adapted to the Brindisi area in a centre for elderly people with Alzheimer's disease.

The study visits in the partner countries were aimed at training, exchanging know-how and procedures on how to implement art therapy in order to produce appropriate behavioural and emotional outcomes to maintain and consolidate residual capacities and improve the socialisation of the person with dementia, including the participation of family members in the implementation of art therapy. The study visits were attended by the staff of the organisations involved to improve the operators' skills and professionalism (4 operators from AlphaZTL plus 2 from each partner, a total of 10 persons).

The mobilities took place on the following dates and destinations: 27-29 May 2022 Latvia, Riga; 10-12 June 2022, Italy, Brindisi; 22-24 September 2022 Greece, Athens; 5-7 December 2022, Slovenia, Ljubljana

During the mobility week in Brindisi, a local awareness-raising activity was also carried out in the Brindisi area to promote the project and share European perspectives, which took the form of an international meeting in Brindisi and Mesagne (BR) to which various public and third sector institutional representatives were invited.

Phase 2 - Return to the territory: community development and experimentation of the model.

This phase took place between February and March 2023 and involved people suffering from neurodegenerative diseases and their families/caregivers. A collaboration agreement was signed with the Cooperativa Sociale Eridano of Brindisi, which manages the Day Centre 'Con il Cuore nella Mente' for people suffering from Alzheimer's in a small village in the province called Cellino San Marco. In this way, the AlphaZTL operators were able to implement their own proposal of art workshops, art therapy, and listening sessions proposed to the centre's users, operators, and family members, elaborated by collecting the best experiences and practices learned at a European level.

From the project's final experimentation, therefore, emerges a transdisciplinary model of practical application that the project partners intend to share with their institutional stakeholders through this publication.

YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE FINAL PUBLICATION OF THE ART VS DEMENTIA PROJECT HERE..

ARTvsDEMENTIA: THE TRANSDISCIPLINARY MODEL

REPORT ON THE GOOD PRACTICES LEARNT FROM THE EUROPEAN EXCHANGE AND THE EXPERIMENTAL PHASE OF THE USE OF ARTS AND ART THERAPY.

Project code: 2021-1-IT02-KA210-ADU-000030122

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.

PARTNERS’ WEBSITES

Slovenia - www.spomincica.si

Lettonia - www.lcca.lv

Grecia - www.alzheimerathens.gr

Erasmus+ - https://www.erasmusplus.it

INFO

progettazionealphaztl@gmail.com

+39 335 7379971

The event is part of the broader "ARTvsDEMENTIA" project, funded by the European Erasmus + Program and the Agenzia Nazionale INDIRE , which sees AlphaZTL - Compagna di Arte Dinamica, awarded the funding, engaged in study visits to Alzheimer's Centers in Greece, Latvia and Slovenia for learn techniques and good practices on the use of arts and art therapies and bring them back to the Brindisi area, starting the experimentation of a model of care that includes, in addition to drug therapies, art and other therapies (ortho-therapy, pet-therapy etc. ...) And that it also carries out training and psychological and moral support actions for families and caregivers.
The aim of the event is to make social and welfare workers, institutions, associations and families / care givers of people suffering from neurocognitive diseases aware of the potential and practical applications of arts and art therapies in the treatment of Alzheimer's.