CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 154Art Therapy and Mental HealthDementia and Cognitive Impairment ResearchDiversity and Impact of Dance

Art therapy for people with dementia

Open access
Deshmukh, Sunita R, Holmes, John, Cardno, Alastair·2018·Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
DOI 10.1002/14651858.cd011073.pub2PMC PMC6513479
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Art therapy is defined by the British Association of Art Therapists as: "a form of psychotherapy that uses art media as its primary mode of communication. Clients who are referred to an art therapist need not have experience or skill in art. The art therapist is not primarily concerned with making an aesthetic or diagnostic assessment of the client's image. The overall aim of its practitioners is to enable a client to change and grow on a personal level through the use of art materials in a safe and facilitating environment". Historically, drawings and paintings have been recognised as a useful part of therapeutic processes within psychiatric and psychological specialties, and this has been acknowledged within medical and neurology-based disciplines.Arts-based therapies are generally considered as interventions managing manifestations of dementia, as they may help to slow cognitive deterioration, address symptoms related to psychosocially challenging behaviours and improve quality of life. OBJECTIVES: To review the effects of art therapy as an adjunctive treatment for dementia compared with standard care and other non-pharmacological interventions. SEARCH METHODS: We identified trials from ALOIS - the Cochrane Dementia and Cognitive Improvement Group's Specialised Register - on 12 May 2014, 20 March 2015, 15 January 2016, 4 November 2016, and 4 October 2017. We also handsearched the grey literature and contacted specialists in the field and authors of relevant reviews or studies to enquire about other sources of relevant information. SELECTION CRITERIA: All randomised controlled trials examining art therapy as an intervention for dementia. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two review authors independently extracted data. We examined scales measuring cognition, affect and emotional well-being, social functioning, behaviour and quality of life. MAIN RESULTS: We found two studies that met the inclusion criteria, incorporating data on a total of 60 participants (from 88 randomised), in experimental groups (n = 29) and active control groups (n = 31). One study compared group art therapy with simple calculation activities over 12 weeks. The other study compared group art therapy with recreational activities over 40 weeks. It was not possible to pool the data for analysis from the included studies, due to heterogeneity in terms of differences in the interventions, control treatments and choice of outcome measures.In both studies there were no clear changes reported between the intervention group and the control group in the important outcome measures. According to GRADE ratings, we judged the quality of evidence for these outcome measures to be 'very low'. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: There is insufficient evidence about the efficacy of art therapy for people with dementia. More adequately-powered and high-quality studies using relevant outcome measures are needed.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1002/14651858.cd011073.pub2

Cites

44 of 44 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • The empirical base for AVAT's effectiveness is rather fragmented; many (often smaller) studies examined the effect of very specific kinds of AVATs, with a narrow focus on certain conditions.

    “Even though AVAT is a popular treatment method, the empirical base for its effectiveness is rather fragmented; many (often smaller) studies examined the effect of very specific kinds of AVATs, with a narrow focus on certain conditions [2, 7, 55, 56].”

    From The effect of active visual art therapy on health outcomes: protocol of a systematic review of randomised controlled trials (2022) · cites this paper as [7]

    The review’s ‘Overall completeness and applicability of evidence’ section reports only two relatively small trials involving 60 people with dementia. Its ‘Agreements and disagreements’ section calls the evidence limited and inconclusive and says the studies varied in their art-therapy activities. This supports the claim of a small, varied evidence base for art therapy in dementia, but not the broader characterization of AVAT research across conditions. (LLM, conf=0.86)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Active visual art therapy (AVAT) is often used as a complementary therapy method, both in acute medicine and in rehabilitation.

    “Active visual art therapy (AVAT) is often used as a complementary therapy method, both in acute medicine and in rehabilitation.”

    From The effect of active visual art therapy on health outcomes: protocol of a systematic review of randomised controlled trials (2022) · cites this paper as [7]

    The review’s ‘Why it is important to do this review’ section describes non-pharmacological interventions for dementia as an adjunctive approach and says art therapy may complement drug treatment. It does not establish that active visual art therapy is often used in acute medicine or rehabilitation; the review concerns people with dementia. (LLM, conf=0.86)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • The limited number of published studies can make the creation of a systematic review difficult, especially when narrowing down additional factors such as the desired study design.

    “The limited number of published studies, however, can make the creation of a systematic review difficult, especially when narrowing down additional factors, such as the desired study design [7].”

    From The effect of active visual art therapy on health outcomes: protocol of a systematic review of randomised controlled trials (2022) · cites this paper as [7]

  • A substantial number of systematic reviews examine the effectiveness of art therapy regarding individual outcomes, such as trauma, anxiety, mental health in people who have cancer, dementia, and potential harms and benefits of the intervention.

    “There is a substantial number of systematic reviews which examine the effectiveness of art therapy regarding individual outcomes, such as trauma [29–33], anxiety [19] mental health in people who have cancer [23, 34, 35] dementia [7], and potential harms and benefits of the intervention [36].”

    From The effect of active visual art therapy on health outcomes: protocol of a systematic review of randomised controlled trials (2022) · cites this paper as [7]

  • The use of AVAT is frequently associated with the treatment of psychiatric, psychosomatic, psychological, or neurological disorders, such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders, trauma, cognitive impairment, or dementia.

    “The use of AVAT is frequently associated with the treatment of psychiatric, psychosomatic, psychological, or neurological disorders, such as anxiety [2], depression [3], eating disorders [4], trauma [5, 6], cognitive impairment, or dementia [7].”

    From The effect of active visual art therapy on health outcomes: protocol of a systematic review of randomised controlled trials (2022) · cites this paper as [7]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

2 of the 46 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Hawe P, Shiell A, Riley T. Important considerations for standardizing complex interventions in public health. Journal of Advanced Nursing 2008;62:267.
  2. Higgins JP, Altman DG, Sterne JA, editor(s). Chapter 8: Assessing risk of bias in included studies. In: Higgins JP, Green S, editor(s). Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions 5.1.0 [updated March 2011]. The Cochrane Collaboration, 2011. Available from www.cochrane-handbook.org.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Deshmukh, S. R., Holmes, J., & Cardno, A.
Affiliations
  • London UK
  • Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (GB)
  • University of Leeds (GB)
ORCID
Venue
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2018-09-13
Volume
2018
Issue
9
Pages
CD011073-CD011073
ISSN
  • 1361-6137 (ISSN-L)
  • 1465-1858
DOI
10.1002/14651858.cd011073.pub2
PMC
PMC6513479
OpenAlex
W1755405135
Cited by
154
References
46
Citations by year
2026: 10 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 24 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 39 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 2 · 2015: 1 · 2013: 2
FWCI
13.44
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) (acceptedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Conservation › Art Therapy and Mental Health
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Diversity and Impact of Dance
Keywords
art therapy, dementia, non-pharmacological treatment, cognitive decline, behavioral problems, quality of life, emotional well-being, social functioning, group art therapy, recreational activities, cognitive activity, adjunctive therapy
MeSH terms
Art Therapy, Dementia, Humans, Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic, Recreation Therapy

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review