Art therapy for dementia and its quality of evidence

Abstract

We report on art therapy for dementia and its quality of evidence, with the objective of furthering its development. We first describe the mechanisms of art therapy for dementia, followed by the Cochrane Library’s findings on this therapeutic approach. The mechanism of art therapy was such that person-centered care and improvement of well-being were the foundations of the therapy. The quality of evidence for art therapy for dementia was rated by Cochrane as “very low”. In art therapy for dementia, there are methodological limitations to randomized controlled trials, and verification of evidence is difficult. The evidence can be strengthened by changing the perspective to observational studies or a narrative approach.