Unlocking the muse - Developing arts-based approaches for people with Parkinson’s disease

Interventions considering the arts are increasingly gaining acceptance in the clinical-methodological repertoire, and in supporting people with diseases. However, current approaches are often limited considering the variety of offered creative activities and are neglecting the influence of the artistic context. Furthermore, there is often a focus on momentary well-being primarily and not on the impact on quality of life, missing centralization around the transferability of creative engagement and art-based interventions into daily life issues. The goal of our study is the implementation of a person-centered, art-based program.
We offer people with Parkinson’s a program wherein they participate in orientation sessions (playgrounds) to find preferred activities, and in specialization sessions (artist studio’s) to develop deep engagement/flow in the preferred activities. Self-direction by participants and a psychological safe environment, are the cornerstones of this program. The first group of participants (n=5) took part in a pilot study. A second pilot and full trial will take place early 2023.
The activities can address both instrumental (practical utilization) and non-instrumental (existential) creativity, with the upper goal to increase the individuum’s quality of life as the main outcome variable. Besides these three quantitative measures (pre/post), individual open interviews (pre/peri/post) are held and analyzed using thematic and grounded methodologies. We aim to distil the active ingredients to transform a person’s mindset and skill-set to learn that engaging with creativity is a tool for enhancing individual quality of life in a self-empowered manner. We will present the first outcomes of our study in this poster.