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 Program Featured in Mosaic Magazine

Monday, February 15th, 2016

University of Alabama Honors College Mosaic Magazine has published an article by Rachel Wilburn titled “A New Beginning.” The article highlights Cognitive Dynamics Foundation’s Bringing Art to Life program, offered as an undergraduate service learning course (UH 300: Art to Life).

You may read the article beginning on page 2 at this link:
A New Beginning

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.