Summary:
The author, a psychologist and aesthetician is concerned with the problem how manual work
during ergotherapy with art therapeutic features stimulates the sensomotor and psychomotor
coordination of patients suffering in the majority from dementia. Stimulation of sensory experience
is manifested in the produced creations which more or less correspond to the extent of the
disorder, type of personality, activity or passivity, extroversion or introversion, usually they do
not correspond to the education and intelligence of the patients. Aesthetic and psychological
stimulation which involves arts, manual activity creative achivments is obtained which frequently
indicates a surprising aesthetic achievement of patients with declining mental capacity and
this is manifested also by improved communication with the environment. Most probably in
a non-verbal way the oldest phylogenetic and ontogenetic brain structures are activated. Two
case-records are presented.
Key words:
gerontopsychiatry, ergotherapy, art therapy, aesthetic and psychological stimulation.
|