Effect of Art Therapy on Cognitive Performance Among Ethnically Diverse Older Adults

The population of ethnically diverse older adults in the US is rapidly growing, and reports of cognitive impairments, such as those caused by Alzheimer's disease, are becoming more prevalent. This investigation explored whether art therapy could provide cognitive benefits among an ethnically diverse (N = 133), particularly Latino/Hispanic, population of older adults who are often excluded from research on aging and cognition. Within the study, five art therapists, each in distinct cities throughout three US states, provided art therapy to individuals aged 55 years and older at locations such as community centers, adult day care, assisted living, and skilled nursing facilities. Data were collected from therapist notes and reports, attendance records, demographic questionnaires, pretests, and posttests. Both objective and subjective assessments were employed during the pre- and posttest sessions. Assessments were chosen based on their validity, reliability, and the availability of previous research demonstrating the efficacy of their use. Seventeen art therapy studies provided the basis for the methodology of this study. An objective assessment was used to evaluate changes in cognitive performance among participants. Two statistical analyses were applied to assessment data: a t-test and a univariate linear regression. In both analyses, the experimental group exhibited significantly improved cognitive performance. Results from the t-test analysis showed that the mean change in scores among experimental group members was significantly greater than the control group (t = 1.68; p = .048). The univariate analysis revealed that cognitive performance showed statistically significant improvement among the experimental group members as compared with the control group (t = 2.44; p = .017). The results indicated that art therapy as a treatment provided a medium effect size (d = .064). Cognitive functioning improved significantly among the experimental group as compared to the control group following 10 weeks of art therapy. Other findings suggested that subjective cognitive performance improved, though not significantly, and that treatment factors such as session duration and art-therapy-approach were significantly correlated with changes in cognitive performance.