Lester Potts’ Art to be Featured in Chicago Exhibit

Thursday, April 23rd, 2015

The National Museum of Health and Medicine Chicago will present an exhibit during the month of June entitled “Bringing Art to Life: Expressive Art and Design in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Patient Care” featuring the watercolors of Lester E. Potts, Jr. and poetry of Cognitive Dynamics Founder and President, Daniel C. Potts, MD, FAAN.  

Mr. Potts began painting only after the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, and produced some 100 watercolors over a 3 year period while attending Caring Days Adult Dementia Daycare Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  His work has been presented at the Alzheimer’s Association’s International Conference (AAICAD) in Paris, the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America’s national conference, and  the David W. Streets Gallery in Beverly Hills, among other venues.  In addition, it has been featured in the LA Times, Neurology Now, Best Alzheimer’s Products, Seasons of Caring and in recently published textbooks of Behavioral and Geriatric Neurology.

Bringing Art to Life seeks to continue a dialogue about how art can be used to enhance the lives and care of people with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. The exhibit will look at art and design as expressive therapies for the neurodegenerative patient, as well as techniques to enhance the effectiveness of caregiving. Research by Dr. Elizabeth Barber will also be featured in the exhibit; Dr. Barber has studied how artwork and interior design can help motivate and provide a beneficial neurological environment especially for people with Parkinson’s and ease the lives of both patients and their caretakers.

Art to Life to Start Another Semester

Tuesday, January 13th, 2015

Cognitive Dynamics is excited to start the next semester of Art to Life today at the University of Alabama Honors College. Art to Life is a service learning Honors seminar course which pairs students and people with Alzheimer’s in art therapy sessions in which life stories are elicited and preserved via the technologies of LifeBio.com. Students learn about Alzheimer’s and caregiving, experience the Virtual Dementia Tour, volunteer at an adult daycare facility (The Mal and Charlotte Moore Center for Caring Days), and develop empathy and understanding through being present in relationship. Students journal about their experiences, and then honor participants with leather-bound life stories and framed art in a dinner celebration. This year a graduate geropsychology student will be conducting outcomes-based research on participant, caregiver and student experiences. Our hope is that people with Alzheimer’s will be honored and validated, caregivers will be given respite, and our students will develop empathy, a force powerful enough to create a widespread culture of compassion in the care of our citizens with chronic conditions like Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Potts Interviewed for U.S. News and World Report Article

Tuesday, December 30th, 2014

Daniel C. Potts, MD, FAAN was interviewed for an article on the use of poetry and other creative arts in the care and treatment of persons with Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia.  The article, released today, was written by Kristine Crane, a Patient Advice reporter at U.S. News.

The piece highlights the work of Mind’s Eye Poetry, an innovative organization founded by Molly Middleton Meyer.  Meyer’s inspiration comes from personal experience: she lost both her parents to Alzheimer’s disease.  A self-described “closet poet,” Meyer decided to get a Master of Fine Arts in poetry, and she now facilitates poetry workshops with Alzheimer’s and dementia patients nationwide.  During a workshop, each person contributes at least one line to a group poem – she’s facilitated more than 700 poems this way.

Dr. Potts was asked to comment about his father’s creativity which revealed itself after the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, and which provided the spark to start his own creative fire.  Shortly before the elder Potts’ death, Dr. Potts started writing poetry as a way to combat the stress of his father’s illness.  He and his family published The Broken Jar in 2006, a volume of his father’s art paired with his own poems, and donated the book and all proceeds to Caring Days Adult Dementia Daycare Center in Tuscaloosa, AL, the facility where Mr. Potts learned to paint.  Cognitive Dynamics was founded to bring similar opportunities involving the arts to others with dementia and their caregivers.

As an arts advocate for the American Academy of Neurology, Potts also notes much clinical interest in the healing power of the arts. “People on the front lines are pulling the science and the art together because they are tapping more deeply than most of our therapies,” he says. “We’re going to have to tap deeply into the spiritual and emotional to make a difference in our care.”

The article may be accessed in full at the following link:

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/patient-advice/articles/2014/12/29/unlocking-the-inner-poet-how-poetry-helps-people-with-dementia

Lester Potts’s Art Featured in New Book of Caregiver Meditations

Tuesday, December 9th, 2014

From ClergyAgainstAlzheimer’s comes Seasons of Caring: Meditations for Alzheimer’s and Dementia Caregivers, a first-of-its-kind interfaith volume offering comfort and hope to Alzheimer’s and dementia caregivers, their families and friends, clergy and faith leaders, and care professionals. Seasons of Caringis available on CreateSpace. Click here to learn more.

Seasons of Caring includes more than 140 original meditations from 72 religious leaders and care specialists – many of them caregivers themselves – representing  some 17 faith traditions. Each writer draws upon his or her years of experience to offer words of hope, encouragement and understanding to those who are now on this journey, and to give voice to the unique challenges confronting Alzheimer’s and dementia caregivers. Contributors speak from the perspective of their distinct faith traditions, yet are united in their support of families facing Alzheimer’s and dementia.

Seasons of Caring will have special meaning for facilitators and members of Alzheimer’s support groups, and will be a catalyst for group reflection, discussion and individual meditation.

All proceeds go to ClergyAgainstAlzheimer’s, a multifaith national network of clergy, laity and faith organizations working to focus our nation’s attention on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, to promote dignity and compassionate care for those with Alzheimer’s, and to support families and caregivers.

Seasons of Caring features the watercolors of Alzheimer’s artist Lester E. Potts, Jr., who discovered his gift of creativity after the diagnosis.  Cognitive Dynamics President Daniel C. Potts, MD, FAAN brought the idea for the collection to the ClergyAgainstAlzheimer’s network, and served as the book’s Editor-in-chief, with associate editors Lynda Everman, Richard Morgan, PhD, Rabbi Steve Glazer, and Max Wallack.

Cognitive Dynamics President Selected as AAN Fellow 

Friday, September 19th, 2014

Daniel C. Potts, M.D., Founder and President of Cognitive Dynamics Foundation has been selected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), that organization’s highest membership category. Fellow status acknowledges exemplary work and achievements in the neurosciences, the clinical practice of neurology or academic/administrative neurology, in the AAN and in the individual’s community as a whole.  Dr. Potts’s advocacy for persons who have dementia and their caregivers, especially in the area of expressive arts and creativity- based programming for quality of life improvement, figured strongly in his selection for this honor.

The IV Pillars Model© at Reflection Therapy

Friday, September 19th, 2014

Robert Montgomery, MA, MFT, Alan Swindall, M.Div., MA, MFT and Daniel C. Potts, MD, FAAN have collaborated to develop The IV Pillars Model©, an innovative new therapy for caregivers and persons with dementia/Alzheimer’s disease which provides ways to maintain personhood while preserving communication. The goal of the therapy is to provide a new perspective that informs the caregiver on how to effectively alter their interaction with a loved one suffering from a new Alzheimer’s/dementia diagnosis so that anxiety is lowered and loving, non-verbal interaction is sustained.

http://reflectiontherapy.com/TuscaloosaAlzheimersCounseling.php