Tenemos cita con el arte: Visiting art museums with people living with Alzheimer's disease and their caregivers

Abstract

GIMUPAI is a research group constituted by teachers and researchers of the Faculty of Fine Arts (Complutense University of Madrid) and the Department of Social Psychology and Anthropology (Salamanca University). In answering to the growing necessity of developing museum programs for people living with Alzheimer's disease, we have designed, implemented and evaluated a set of museum visits and workshops under the name "Tenemos cita con el arte". This initiative is part of the Spanish state-funded research project entitled "Art education un museums and other cultural institutions as a tool for increasing the wellbeing of people affected with Alzheimer" (Ministerio de Educación-EDU2013-43253-R). With this program we aim at making the museum accessible to people with Alzheimer and their caregivers. In doing so, we analyze the difficulties that a group of this characteristics encounters. This text offers an in-depth view of the museum itineraries carried out during the visits to the Museo del Prado and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid. It includes information on the specific aims, methodology, contents, challenges and difficulties encountered while accompanying a group of people suffering from Alzheimer's disease and their caregivers to a museum setting.