Week 7: Engaging with art can help patients cope with the emotional impact of memory loss!

Rusha B -

Hi everybody!

 

This week is all about data analysis! Now that I have gathered what I think is a sufficient amount of participant data (13 persons), I want to do a quantitative survey analysis first on the first survey results to determine trends and peculiarities. To preface, I will be doing this work further in detail with the help of my expert advisor on Thursday. Generally, I noticed that many of the participants were unsure of their age, so I factored that out. There were several questions that, while doing the procedure, seemed unnecessary so I omitted them. Many adjustments were made in order to effectively grab data- such as how I initially planned to have a “break” of 30-45 minutes in-between surveys. However, we opted to show one paiting, show survey 1, show all 3 paintings and have them choose the correct one, and then show survey 2 all in the span of 5 minutes. The severity of the dementia necessitated these adjustments and helped with gathering a lot of raw data. Generally, many of tue participants were drawn to the more abstract painting (Painting C), which I found unexpected, while they seemed to overlook Painting B’s intense expression. The variety in shapes and colors and intensity of the subject seemed to be a focus point for the participants. Another thing to note, the FSL daycare occasionally offers art classes once a week that some of the participants participated in regularly, while others chose not to. The frequency of how often someone HAS done art and CONTINUES to do art is super interesting as many participants who happened to be artists continued their speciality well into their diagnosis with dementia. Some participants had never participated in art their whole life and never cared for it. The significance of art in a persons life was narrowed down into a few questions due to a lack of consistency regarding all the answers so therefore we categorized the significance of art present in a participants life using numbers. More to come with the data analysis and discovering further trends! Thanks so much for listening!

 

Best,

Rusha

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Comments:

All viewpoints are welcome but profane, threatening, disrespectful, or harassing comments will not be tolerated and are subject to moderation up to, and including, full deletion.

    Ayesha Amirah
    Hello Rusha! Most of the results have been generally following the same pattern, but were there any outliers or unexpected patterns in the data that stood out to you? Thank you!
    March 29, 2025 at 2:18 pm - Reply
    Jolie L
    Hi, Rusha! Do you think there is a reason why the participants were more drawn to Painting C than Painting B?
    March 30, 2025 at 7:20 pm - Reply
    Roberto D
    Hello! Do you believe that they were more attracted to painting C because they are more interested in more intricate or foreign paintings? Thanks!
    March 31, 2025 at 9:14 am - Reply
    rusha_b
    Hi Ayesha! Thanks for your comment! There have been a few outliers, such as Patients who indicate 0 connection to artwork, yet get the painting correct. There have been a few individuals with severe dementia and therefore may not fully understand the questions I am asking or cannot answer them at all. We also surveyed one individual who was said to have dementia yet did not have any cognitive impairment whatsoever that we took out from the data samples.
    April 2, 2025 at 10:22 pm - Reply
    rusha_b
    Hi Jolie, thanks for your comment! I believe people were more drawn to Painting C over Painting B due to the variety of shapes, patterns, and colors displayed in the painting. To people who are now unable to identify objects and environments, and can hardly recognize faces, basic shapes and colors that all contrast with another seem to draw more interest based on the intense colors and identifiable shapes such as teeth and eyes that were commonly pointed out by the patients.
    April 2, 2025 at 10:25 pm - Reply
    rusha_b
    Hi Roberto! Thanks for commenting, I think it might potentially be due to the fact that it is unordinary and because of the variety of shapes, colors, and patterns.
    April 2, 2025 at 10:29 pm - Reply

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