Museums Art & Alzheimer’s

Two main products, available in the Resources section, were developed during the project: a Training Course for museum educators and geriatric activity coordinators who want to create or implement museum programmes for people with dementia and their carers; and a manual (toolkit) on how to communicate with people with dementia through the arts, dedicated to family and professional carers. These materials integrate with training and dissemination events organized by the partners, whose videos are partly available on the site in the Events section. Such experiences, as well as programmes with people with dementia and their carers delivered in the museums involved in the project, were fundamental to the participatory definition of content. The outputs are firmly based in the idea of education as shared knowledge building; on the creation of a non-hierarchical learning environment (whether real or virtual) in which each person, including individuals living with dementia, contribute to the development of skills and abilities. The impact of MA&A project was very significant and exceeded expectations. Through the project, partner organizations favored the access of people living with dementia and their carers to meaningful and intense cultural experiences and consolidated their relationships with the community and local stakeholders.
Among the unexpected results one can point out that in Italy, following the pilot experimentation of Output 1, some important museums such as the Florence Cathedral Museum, the Pecci Center for Contemporary Art and the Prato Textile Museum and the network of Empolese Valdelsa museums have started new programmes for people with dementia that have already involved about 100 people in one month. The project contributes to spreading a new perception of dementia, to break down the stigma, to create a "dementia friendly" society and to network museums offering accessible programmes to people with dementia and their carers.