Marble figurines, painting, pottery and other creative and mind stimulating activities in a unique program that brings art into nursing homes.
Since January 2019, we have visited 12 care homes. The focus was on Cycladic civilization and art with many activities especially designed for nursing home residents and for people living with dementia. These activities comprised visual, auditory and tactile stimuli, associations, material composition and creation encouragement using the “Connotation Thought Principle” of thāllo; indicatively, those visits included:
Virtual reality in nursing homes
The positive impact of the first year encouraged us to further enhance the experience of the beneficiaries. The result was the creation of a visual tour at the Museum of Cycladic Art with the use of virtual reality, accompanied by a new series of workshops.
As we resumed our visits to nursing homes, we offered the elderly the experience of visiting the Museum’s permanent collection through a carefully scripted virtual tour, based on our experience with the technology used in people living with dementia.
The technology of virtual reality offers a new form of recreation to people living with dementia, while the multisensory experience it provides seems to limit some symptoms of the condition, such as stress and confusion.
The goal of all the activities implemented was not only the recreation of people who live in nursing homes and cannot visit the Museum, but also their experiential contact with Cycladic culture.
The program is part of the social program “Wise Friends at the Museum” of the Museum of Cycladic Art and is implemented thanks to the support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and the ΤΙΜΑ Charitable Foundation.