Art gives Alzheimer's patients a lift - Ocala

<p>GAINESVILLE -- Peggy and Riley Blitch, both 76 years old, have known each other almost as long as they have been alive.</p><p>They were neighbors before entering the same kindergarten class at P.K. Yonge School, and they started dating in high school and married in 1959.</p><p>Today, Peggy remembers only glimpses of the life she and Riley have shared — when he shows her pictures from their wedding, or vacations at Yosemite National Park.</p><p>"Most of what goes on in Peggy's mind is within one or two minutes of when it happens," Riley said.</p><p>Peggy was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease four years ago, but her symptoms started a few years before that.</p><p>She had trouble finding things in her suitcase on trips, and one night she got lost driving home after she was supposed to have gone on errands to the laundromat and Publix.</p><p>"She completely forgot about Publix and went to the wrong house," Riley said, explaining that she had gone to the house where they had lived previously.</p><p>Riley and a live-in caregiver care for Peggy at home, and a little more than a year ago, Peggy started going a few times a week to Al'z Place, a day care center for Alzheimer's and dementia patients.</p><p>"We can tell she's a different person after she's been here," Riley said. "She's more aware of what's going on around her."</p><p>Al'z Place was founded 25 years ago and is operated by ElderCare of Alachua County. It is one of the three model day care centers for people with Alzheimer's disease or related dementia in Florida, manager Robyn Katz said.</p><p>They take only 20 patients a day to maintain the three-to-one patient-to-staff ratio, Katz added. People are constantly doing physical or cognitive activities, and last week, they did paintings that will be auctioned off at the Moonlight and Martinis Benefit for Al'z Place in February.</p><p>For more information on the Moonlight and Martinis benefit, go online to www.moonlightandmartinis.org/.</p><p>"Catch my butterflies," artist Noell Hammer told Peggy Blitch.</p><p>Hammer flapped her fingers against her thumbs like butterflies in the air.</p><p>Peggy watched, a shy smile covering her face. She hesitatingly lifted her own hands and began moving her fingers like Hammer.</p><p>"Good!" Hammer told her, then turning to Peggy's small audience that included Riley, Peggy's caregiver, and Peggy's therapy dog Max, Hammer explained that although Peggy hadn't "caught" her butterflies, her mimicking response was a good sign.</p><p>Then Hammer asked Peggy to identify flowers in a picture that resembled the painting she had just spent 45 minutes making with Hammer's help.</p><p>Peggy correctly identified the flowers, whereas before doing the painting, she couldn't find the right word.</p><p>"We can turn it around in a very short amount of time," Hammer said, referring to patients' visual agnosia, a condition common in dementia and Alzheimer's disease in which patients can't recognize things.</p><p>Hammer, an artist based in West Palm Beach, added, "I don't know how it works. But I don't know how my cellphone works."</p><p>Hammer is confident that painting is helping people with Alzheimer's disease, though. She made that observation 14 years ago, when she first started working with Alzheimer's patients. People who painted straight lines struggled with words, and those who painted swirls struggled with spatial issues, Hammer said.</p><p>"The brush was a way of giving information to the brain," Hammer said. "We don't pretend to be clinical. We're saying, 'Here's something that everyone can do.'?"</p><p>Hammer established an organization called Art Without Boundaries — www.artwithoutboundaries.net — that employs MnemeTherapy, which uses singing, movement, painting and storytelling to stimulate change in the brain.</p><p>Dr. Kenneth Heilman, a renowned behavioral neurologist at the University of Florida, did not comment on the practice and said randomized controlled trials would have to be done to give it scientific legitimacy.</p><p>He explained, however, that people with Alzheimer's usually have greater degeneration in the left side of the brain. Since one side inhibits the other, this can leave the right side — the more artistic side — to flourish.</p><p>"Maybe you are encouraging the right side that is somewhat disinhibited from developing talents," Heilman said of the painting practice.</p><p>Hammer said people who have done it — even in short, 30-minute spurts — have recovered recognition.</p><p>She guides their hands during the painting, shaping the large objects such as vases and tree trunks (they do landscape paintings.) Then she has the patients fill in the rest — leaves and flowers — often using bouncing brushstrokes, which Hammer said might help the brain recreate its spatial grid, which in turn can improve recognition.</p><p>For example, many patients, before the painting exercise, might, in a painting of a vase of flowers, see a ghost or a lady with feathers in her hair because they hyperfocus — seeing one detail instead of the whole picture. But afterward, they routinely see the vase of flowers, Hammer said.</p><p>And they are often happy about what they've been able to do, which is also therapeutic, she added.</p><p>Heilman agreed that the exercise could improve their mood.</p><p>"When you have a dementing disease, a lot of times, even in the absence of profound dementia, a lot of people are down … and you find an activity which liberates them (that) may also have some influence on their mood," he said.</p><p><i>Contact Kristine Crane at 338-3119 or kristine.crane@gvillesun.com.</i></p>