Alzheimer’s Poetry Project
New Mexico Literary Arts
Santa Fe, NM
http://www.nmliteraryarts.org/
Receiving the Award:
Gary Glazner, Director, New Mexico Literary Arts
The goal of the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project (APP) is to improve the quality of life of people living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias by facilitating creative expression through poetry. The rationale for using poetry with people living with dementia stems from research that shows aerobic benefits and increased synaptic activity when reciting poems and significant emotional and psychological benefit from being able to access the creative part of one’s identity. Since 2003, APP has provided professional arts programming in 24 states and internationally serving over 15,000 people with early to late-stage dementia and their caregivers. It also provides training for professional caregivers and teaching artists. The result has been an innovative, highly replicable arts intervention to improve the quality of life of people living with dementia and their families.