Singing, dancing, listening to music, and painting are powerful tools for engaging patients with neurologic conditions and even alleviating symptoms. Visual and performing arts also can be used to raise awareness and educate the public about neurologic disorders, research has shown.
Among studies on the arts as a form of therapy, research published in Neurological Sciences in 2020 found that specific types of music improved the gaits of people with Parkinson's disease. For stroke patients, dance therapy improved balance and walking, according to a 2018 study in Topics in Stroke Rehabilitation. In a 2019 issue of Frontiers in Neurology, Canadian researchers concluded from studies about music interventions for people with Alzheimer's disease that both music therapy and listening to music improved behavior and cognition.
Various programs around the country connect neurologic patients and caregivers with the arts. One such example is Arts & Minds, an organization founded by James M. Noble, MD, FAAN, associate professor of neurology at Columbia University's Irving Medical Center and the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain. The nonprofit entity works with New York City museums—including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the New-York Historical Society, the Jewish Museum, and El Museo del Barrio—on outreach to people with neurologic conditions. The museums provide participants with specially designed tours of their collections as well as studio space where they can make their own art.
Dr. Noble was inspired to create the nonprofit after attending a 2008 event presented by Met Escapes, a program at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that introduced people with dementia to works of art and gave them the opportunity to create art. He witnessed patients becoming lively and talkative and interacting positively with their families and caregivers.
Soon thereafter, Dr. Noble began his first faculty position with Columbia University at Harlem Hospital. Just across the street, he could see the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, where art by famed Harlem Renaissance artist Aaron Douglas hung on the walls. “Art and music are all around in Harlem,” says Dr. Noble. That made him wonder if something like Met Escapes could be replicated in the neighborhood he served. He enlisted Carolyn Halpin-Healy, who was involved with Met Escapes, to help launch Arts & Minds, which has initiated more than 1,000 programs in English and Spanish since it began in 2009. The organization also offers a training course for educators.
Programs modeled on Arts & Minds are now held at institutions outside New York, including the Smithsonian and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and Iowa's Dubuque Museum of Art. Caregivers report seeing the faces of their loved ones with dementia light up as they examine the works of art.
“It just makes you want to get up and go!” exclaimed one woman with advanced dementia after looking at the work of multimedia artist Pamela Council at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Nora Mann, the daughter of a participant with Alzheimer's disease, says the program lets her mother continue to indulge her lifelong love of art. “You can't overestimate the value of those things,” Mann says.
Since the start of the pandemic, a virtual version of Arts & Minds has been available in locations as far away as Medellín, Colombia. Registrants receive packets of art supplies, and after finishing the virtual tour of a New York museum or gallery, they make art in their own homes with the assistance of caregivers. “The virtual platform is better for my husband because he gets so tired these days and traveling to a place takes a toll on him,” says one caregiver.
To measure the effects of viewing and creating art on behavior, quality of life, and cost of dementia care, Dr. Noble is trying to implement a longitudinal, randomized study of the program participants. “In an ideal world, Medicare would cover many types of enrichment for people with dementia to capitalize on their remaining cognitive, emotional, and behavioral strengths,” says John R. Absher, MD, FAAN, associate professor of neurology at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine in Greenville.
Art is also being incorporated into awareness campaigns for neurologic disorders—such as the music-video series called Hip Hop Stroke, which teaches children the signs of stroke in adults. Another initiative, Headache and Arts, educates teenagers about migraine and concussion through the visual arts. It focuses on teens because that's the age when people typically begin to develop migraine, and because student athletes are at risk for concussions from sports injuries.
“I've always considered art a universal form of expression,” says Mia Minen, MD, MPH, FAAN, director of research at NYU Langone Health's headache division, who founded Headache and Arts in 2014. Dr. Minen created a curriculum for art teachers in New York City high schools that covers the neuroscience underlying migraine and concussion; instructions for drawing the brain; and discussion of artists such as Georgia O'Keeffe and Vincent van Gogh, whose experiences with migraine informed their work.
Students in the program create final projects for exhibition. A sophomore at the Loyola School in New York City painted a person with a sad face and a transparent skull in which a brain is symbolically being beaten by hammers. Other artwork by students depicted the effects of migraine aura as shimmering lines or a spot with jagged edges.
“Watching the students create this art was so rewarding,” says Tyler Gumpel, one of five undergraduate volunteers who helped Dr. Minen set up the curriculum in schools. “The interdisciplinary of the program made the science more accessible and interesting to students who previously didn't enjoy the sciences, and the art more meaningful to students who thought they lacked art appreciation,” says Gumpel, now a student at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University in Syracuse.
Headache and Arts includes an outreach component, inviting students to share their new understanding with their family members and communities. Students have organized school assembly presentations, distributed information about migraine at community centers, and created social media campaigns to educate their peers about the dangers of concussions in sports.
An offshoot of Headache and Arts called the Public Health Ambassador (PHA) program recently started training students to become advocates. They learn how to pitch story ideas to the media and brainstorm how best to convey information about migraine and concussion to the public. Participants also make oral presentations about their artwork, which includes discussing how they chose their visual interpretations. The PHA program is modeled on the American Academy of Neurology's Palatucci Advocacy Leadership Forum (PALF), which teaches neurologists how to use the press and grassroots efforts to raise awareness. Dr. Minen has received funding from PALF for the PHA program.
In 2019, a virtual version of Headache and Arts became available statewide through partnerships with the New York State Education Department's Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP), a college-prep initiative that aims to expand underrepresented students' participation in math and science. Headache and Arts is also used in summer-school and after-school programs. For schools that lack art teachers, Dr. Minen is repackaging the program to be taught in science and health classes, while retaining art as an essential element. To expand the program nationally with the help of science museums, Dr. Minen has applied for funding from the National Institutes of Health.
Migraine is still “misunderstood by most of the public,” says Amaal Starling, MD, FAAN, associate professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, AZ. “Headache and Arts can combat stigma, educate students and leaders of tomorrow, and support those living with migraine.”
The program inspired one student, Ashley Milone, a sophomore at the Loyola School in New York City, to write a poem about migraine, part of which reads, “Senses divert into meaningless blurts / Reality intensifies yet blurs / Outwardly perfect yet scarlessly hurts / Beware the signs before it recurs.”
