The benefits of art for aged care residents

Art and design principles are now being used to improve the wellbeing of residents living with dementia.

The founder and creative director of Brisbane-based Tailored Artworks, Sharron Tancred, said that using art and neuroscientific insights can stimulate a sense of “beauty and wonder” among aged care residents.

Tancred’s work has now transformed dozens of aged care homes around Australia.

“The right kind of artwork, that people with dementia can perceive and use as landmarks — that they can reminisce with and have conversations about — that creates dopamine, it raises wellbeing, it improves health,” she said.

But there’s more to it than choosing and displaying art pieces with uplifting images, colours, surfaces and dimensions.

According to Tancred, it’s about using the science around art technologies when designing or renovating rooms, corridors, doors, windows and signs to make them both attractive and comprehensible to people with impaired perception and visuospatial abilities, and often also age-related seeing difficulties — such as macular degeneration.

“It’s a mixture of colour psychology, interior decoration, dementia science and neuro-aesthetics — a new science that looks at how we are neurobiologically geared to be affected by the aesthetics all around us,” she said.

“Art provides activity: it’s a holistic solution to a problem that dementia experts and carers have been coming to me about for 16 years.

“In residential aged care, we have people who have lived in their own homes their whole life and suddenly they’re in a community of, say, 60 people in a hospital-style environment.”

Most aged care residents are bored, and boredom causes depression, according to Tancred. “Over 50% of people in residential aged care have symptoms of depression and 60% are medicated — that’s a cost and a very unhealthy cost.”

An artist, graphic designer and interior decorator by training, Tancred’s engagement began when she was commissioned to design murals to enliven a dementia care facility that looked dismal, despite caring staff.

“I got increasingly interested about the science and how I could help. And the aged care providers I have worked with have shared their experiences and given me many insights,” she said.

Examples of how well-chosen art and design makes everyday life better for residents and staff include:

• Wayfinding as landmarks: Artworks that attract and engage curiosity become associated with specific locations, so residents can identify places and their purposes.
• Personalised room doors: Tailored door designs help residents identify their own rooms, preventing wrong room entries that provoke embarrassment and incidents.
   

Tancred has seen a great upsurge in aged care home operators’ interest in dementia-friendly design since the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety (2018–2021) which underscored the importance of accommodation design in providing high-quality care.

Image caption: Sharron Tancred, founder of Tailored Artworks. Image: Supplied