There are currently more than fifty-five million people living with dementia world-wide, and nearly ten million new cases are added each year. At the same time, not only is there a demographic increase in elderly people, ageism – a significant factor in society’s attitude to dementia – is also on the rise. Unfortunately, there are no medical treatments yet to cure or contain dementia. Art, however, offers a means of creating a sense of well-being for those affected; it provides empowerment for pupils how to engage with their relatives, education for caregivers and mindfulness for the society. The DEMEDARTS Dementia.Empathy.Education.Arts.research project (2020-2024, funded by the Austrian Science Fund: FWF, PEEK, Grant-DOI: 10.55776/AR609) aims to develop teaching materials for art lessons for the first time in order to sensitize students at university and in secondary level 1+2 to the topic of dementia. The open-source concepts for this are designed, implemented and tested by research staff as well as students of art teaching and music education. These teaching tools are designed to be easy to understand and implement. They are combined with online symposium events of various kinds on this topic in order to communicate relevant content and to be able to design them individually - depending on the target group and interests. In addition, some of the communication tools are also aimed at those affected (people with dementia), their relatives or professional care staff. The tools are translated into various languages for this purpose. This paper presents some of the projects.

Authors:
Ruth Mateus-Berr, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria

About the Presenter(s)
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Ruth Mateus-Berr is an artist and scientist at the University of Applied Arts Vienna; Head: Center for Didactics of Art and Interdisciplinary Education. Main focus: e.g. interdisciplinary art and design education/research.

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruth-mateus-berr-52023936/

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