A New Book of Reflections Highlights Bringing Art to Life

Sunday, July 24th, 2022

A new book by Daniel C. Potts, MD, FAAN highlights Bringing Art to Life to celebrate the program’s 10^th anniversary.

Bringing Art to Life (BATL) is a service-learning program developed in memory of Lester E. Potts, Jr. Its primary purpose is to honor and validate persons living with dementia and other cognitive disorders through art therapy, other expressive arts, and storytelling. Additional goals include facilitating the development of intergenerational, multicultural relationships; growing empathy, compassion, knowledge, and self-awareness in students via transformational educational paradigms; lessening stigma; providing respite for care partners; and laying a foundation for the ongoing engagement and enrichment of students, persons living with dementia, and their care partners in the broader community.

The book, Bringing Art to Life: Reflections on Dementia and the Transforming Power of Art and Relationships, published by Resource Publications (an imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers) highlights the story of Alzheimer’s artist, Lester Potts, as the inspiration for developing BATL. It describes the program, including original research showing the program’s effects on growing empathy and reducing dementia-related stigma. The book also discusses the spiritual side of care partnership, including the development of mindfulness, relationships, and self-awareness in creating a culture of compassion. Reflections and poetry about participants in the program are shared, as well. Finally, the author describes his own spiritual transformation and growth as a result of the relationships formed in the program.

Praising the book, Terrence Cascino, MD, past president of the American Academy of Neurology, “applauds Dr. Potts’s extraordinary commitment and dedication to caregivers, students, family, and patients afflicted with dementia. Even as a senior neurologist, I found this book changed my perception of the capabilities of people with dementia. This is a great read for anyone caring for individuals with these disorders.”

Vicki de Klerk-Rubin, executive director of the Validation Training Institute and daughter of Naomi Feil, adds that “Bringing Art to Life is a book of passion; a description not only of magnificent dementia care but also of a man’s journey to finding greater compassion, spirituality, and a deep understanding of what Naomi Feil calls ‘the wisdom of the disoriented old-old.’ … There is much to learn, appreciate, and be inspired by in this book.”

Author, Daniel Potts, adds: “It was a pleasure to get this book together. There has been so much rich content in the program, and I feel honored to share some reflections about the wonderful people with whom we’ve become friends and experiences we’ve had together. I felt an obligation to write, as I am the only one who has been present at every art therapy session offered in our Tuscaloosa iteration of the program for the past decade. I hope these stories will be inspiring to others.”

The book is available in paperback, hard cover, and kindle at the following link:

Bringing Art to Life Research to be Presented at AAN Meeting

Sunday, April 3rd, 2022

Daniel C. Potts, MD, FAAN Advocates Via Podcasts and Interviews

Monday, January 10th, 2022

Cognitive Dynamics Founder and President, neurologist Daniel C. Potts, MD, FAAN advocates for persons living with dementia and care partners via a number of podcasts and online interviews, which may be accessed at the following links. These presentations cover topics such as the expressive arts in dementia care, the role of spirituality and faith in dementia care, reminiscence and life story, care partner wellness, the building of empathy in healthcare providers, virtual reality, helping persons with dementia to live well, etc.

Being Patient: The Transformative Power of Art in Dementia Care

Dementia Alliance International: Learnings from Patients

N2 Creative Aging with Angel Duncan

Kentuck Museum: Memory, Forgetting, and Art

The Caregivers, with Lon Kieffer

Dementia Action Alliance: This Dementia Life

Alz Authors: Untangling the Expressive Arts for Dementia Care

Life on Repeat: Pillars of Personhood

Professional Insights

Together in This: The Importance of Dementia-Compassionate Culture

Blog Talk Radion: Understanding Dementia and Alzheimer’s

Long Live The Brains: Who Knew He Was An Artist?

Loving Through Dementia: Dementia Conversations

Cognitive Dynamics Board Members Appear on Podcasts and Interviews

Monday, January 10th, 2022

Members of the Cognitive Dynamics Board of Directors have appeared as featured guests on podcasts and online interviews related to Alzheimer’s, dementia, aging, care giving, expressive arts, person-centered care, eldercare, advocacy, research, spirituality in dementia care, and other topics.

Executive Arts Director Angel C. Duncan, MA, MFT-ATR has appeared on podcasts that may be accessed at this link:

N2CreativeAging

Board Members Lynda Everman and Don Wendorf, PsyD have appeared on podcasts that may be accessed at these links:

Living Fully and Meaningfully

Person-centered Care form UC Irvine

Bringing Spirituality into a Dementia Friendly World

The Power of the Expressive Arts for Persons Living With Dementia

From Advocating for Your Loved One to Advocating for All

Dementia Advocacy and the Stole Ministry : Lynda Everman

Bringing Art to Life-Chicago Opens with New Innovations

Friday, July 30th, 2021

Bringing Art to Life-Chicago (BATL-C), Cognitive Dynamics Foundation’s intergenerational expressive arts program for persons living with dementia and student partners, re-opened in July for the first time since the pandemic began. Again partnering with Chicago Methodist Senior Services, the program pairs residents who are living with dementia with student volunteers; this semester, we are working with students from Loyola University.

During the didactic portion of the class, students learn the neuroscience of Alzheimer’s and other dementias from Dr. Neelum Aggarwal, BATL-C lead faculty and Rush University neurologist, and BATL-C founder, Daniel C. Potts, MD, FAAN lectures about person-centered care, memory and the use of the expressive arts in dementia care.  Students experience virtual reality modules from Embodied Labs, which help to create empathic understanding for the lived experience of dementia and caregiving.

A new innovation this semester is a virtual museum experience in partnership with the Yale University Art Gallery, facilitated by their museum staff, with art directives to follow facilitated by art therapist, Angel C. Duncan, MA, MFT-ATR, Executive Arts Director of Cognitive Dynamics Foundation, who also lectures to the students about art therapy.

Students and their dementia partners will spend time in a sensory garden at CMSS, created in our last iteration of BATL-C, and some of the herbs will find their way into a meal for the program’s final celebratory dinner at the end of the semester.

BATL-C is made possible in part by a grant from the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America. Research shows the program increases empathy in student participants and improves attitudes toward older adults and persons living with dementia. 

Bringing Art to Life Research Presented at IAGG 2017

Friday, July 28th, 2017

The Bringing Art to Life (BATL) Research Team presented an abstract titled “The Effects of an Intergenerational Service Learning Experience on Ageist Attitudes” highlighting outcomes data from University of Alabama Honors students enrolled in UH 300: Art to Life at the 21st IAGG World Congress of Gerontology and Geriatrics in San Francisco on July 25, 2017.

UH 300: Art to Life is an Honors service learning class offered at the University of Alabama as part of our foundation’s Bringing Art to Life (BATL) program. Students learn about Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, participate in the Virtual Dementia Tour, volunteer at an adult dementia daycare center, participate in mindfulness activities, develop an appreciation for the challenges of caregiving, and learn the tenets of person-centered care. In the experiential part of the course, students are paired with persons living with dementia, and participate in weekly art therapy sessions facilitated by an experienced art therapist. Students develop relationships with their participants, learn their life stories, and create a leather-bound life legacy book using LifeBio.com, presenting this to their participants and their families in a celebratory dinner at the end of the semester.

A research team from the Alabama Research Institute on Aging and the UA Department of Psychology led by Keisha Ivey, MA and Rebecca Allen, PhD has been conducting research since 2015, and the current abstract addresses student data from pre-and post surveys measuring empathy and attitudes toward older adults, persons living with dementia and community service.

Compared with student controls from a psychology of aging course, BATL students exhibited statistically significant improvement in attitudes towards persons living with dementia and toward community service, as well as greater increases in empathy.

Research will be ongoing, and will involve analysis of the program’s impact on participating persons living with dementia and their caregivers.

For more information on Bringing Art to Life, read this Huffington Post article by Angel C. Duncan, MA, MFT-ATR, the Executive Arts Director for Cognitive Dynamics who helped to create the program: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/angel-duncan/bringing-art-to-life-an-i_b_9619446.html

From left to right, Dr. Anne Halli-Tierney, Dr. Rebecca Allen, and Dr. Daniel C. Potts at the 21st IAGG World Congress of Gerontology and Geriatrics