Building Bridges Across Age and Cognitive Barriers through Art

Our goal is to help create a society that values older adults with dementia. We achieve this by building genuine friendships between people with dementia and volunteers as they engage in art-making.

GOALS of OMA

1. To promote the social engagement, autonomy, and dignity of people with dementia by providing creative self-expression opportunities;

2. To provide staff and volunteers with opportunities to build intimate relationships with people with dementia;

3. To show the public the creative self-expression capacities of people with dementia through exhibitions of their artwork;

4. To contribute to the scholarly literature on dementia care and the arts.

OMA was founded in 2007 at Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University. It is grounded in “person-centered” ethics, rather than disease-centered. The program has a specific process that ensures failure-free creative experiences.

OMA focuses on what people CAN do. It is designed so that people with dementia can:

a. More freely express themselves and assert their individuality

b. Succeed on their own with minimal assistance only when necessary

c. Feel a sense of personal accomplishment

The intergenerational weekly art program is implemented in group sessions: Up to a dozen people with dementia participate in creative art-making with the assistance of trained staff members and trained volunteers who work with them on a one-to-one basis.

The art-making sessions culminate in a gallery exhibition at the Cultural Arts Center celebrating the artists’ accomplishments while educating the public about the creative capacities of people with dementia.