Tangles in Time Utlizes the Arts to Nurture Patients Coping With Dementia

The Citizen Recommends: Tangles in Time

A partnership between Jefferson and Theatre of Witness produced a play that turns fine art into medicine

Sep. 11, 2019

In his work with thousands of patients with Alzheimer's dementia, the late neurologist and beloved author Oliver Sacks noted one constant: As varied as the manifestations of dementia may be, all patients seem to reply, positively, to music. Today, healthcare providers recognize music equally a meaningful attribute of dementia therapy.

And through an innovative partnership funded past The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Jefferson and the nonprofit Theatre of Witness accept come up together to take that thread further, creating programming that uses the arts—music, functioning, photography, writing—to nurture not merely patients living with dementia, but their caretakers and aspiring healthcare providers.

Called Tangles in Time, the programme has, for the final two years, brought together a small community of patients, caregivers, and students of brain illness and disorders, to develop and produce a performance for the public.

The 2-yr programme will culminate this weekend in three performances at the stunning Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral in West Philly. The shows volition feature participants telling their securely personal stories through spoken words and with the use of original music, video, and other media.

"It's about identity and relationships, and how those might change, or not change, over time," Cui says. "I really feel like everyone will detect something that resonates with them."

Tangles in Time has its roots in the medical school's mission to cultivate in its healthcare providers a deep sense of empathy. "Medicine is historically function science and part art. It's a lot of technical noesis and a lot of science, but ultimately information technology's nigh treating and hopefully facilitating the healing of a man," says Megan Voeller, director of Humanities and co-director of Scholarly Enquiry-Humanities at Jefferson. Medical instruction, Voeller feels, "has perennially struggled to teach the man parts of intendance along with the scientific discipline and the technical knowledge."

There's enquiry suggesting that the arts can help, and today many medical schools offer electives in the humanities, and studies accept shown the positive bear on such courses tin can accept on reducing burnout among healthcare workers, a notoriously burnt-out population. Jefferson has emphatically taken this phone call to heart; prior to Tangles in Time, for example, it partnered with the nonprofit ARTZ Philadelphia to pair medical students with dementia patients or their caregivers for a serial of group museum visits and conversation, as a means of forging intimate connections with patients, interactions that could get beyond anatomy labs or textbook memorization.

For Tangles in Time, the medical school sought out Theatre of Witness for its history of bringing people's lived experiences to the stage. Teya Sepinuk founded the organization thirty years ago, and says she was drawn to this particular project with Jefferson because of its humanity, its potential to connect people of all walks of life.

"Medicine is historically part scientific discipline and part fine art. It's a lot of technical knowledge and a lot of science, only ultimately it's well-nigh treating and hopefully facilitating the healing of a human being being," says Voeller.

"The people who are involved in this"—there are 12 bandage members, 18 artists, plus a host of vendors who helped with elements like marketing materials—"are all doing this because they so believe in the ability of sharing these stories, stories that are often so painful. Embedded in all of them is that they're all stories of love of some kind or another," Sepinuk says. There's the deep caring that the caregivers are providing or have provided for their loved ones, and the dearest and credence showered on the people living with dementia by everyone in the programme.

For many participants, she says, "information technology's painful to go into their wounds and their grief and loss." For students, it not simply amplifies empathy, just helps them explore and strengthen why they wanted to go medical professionals in the first place.

Salena Cui, a third-year medical educatee who's involved with the production, says that anyone can discover meaning in the performance.

"Yep, a lot of it is about dementia and Alzheimer'due south and memory, just the more than unifying theme is broader than that: It'southward near identity and relationships, and how those might modify, or non modify, over time," she says. "I actually feel like anybody volition discover something that resonates with them."

Photo courtesy Raymond Holman Jr.

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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/tangles-in-time-theatre-witness/

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