RESEARCH
The APP is involved in research to better understand how non-pharmaceutical interventions may improve the quality of life of people living with dementia.
Working with the New Jersey Institute for Successful Aging, Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine, we conducted a research project entitled, "Medical Students’ Perceptions of Dementia after Participation in Poetry Workshop with People with Dementia." It was published in the latest issue of International Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.
Aagje Swinnen Professor of Literature at Maastricht University, in the Netherlands, completed a 5-month study of the APP as a Fulbright Scholar that took place from February to June 2014. Her paper “Healing Words: Critical Inquiry of Poetry Interventions in Dementia Care,” was published the journal Dementia.
“Healing Words: Critical Inquiry of Poetry Interventions in Dementia Care,” Abstract
We have recently competed a research project with Dr. Kate de Medeiros, Assistant Professor of Gerontology and Scripps Fellow in the Department of Sociology and Gerontology at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. That project is in the process of being written and the paper will be presented at the Gerontological Society of America Conference in 2016.
More info coming soon
OBSERVATION OF BEHAVIORS AMONG MEMORY IMPAIRED ADULTS DURING A POETRY READING
Submitted to the School of Graduate Nursing In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of Master of Science in Nursing by Lynn Green, Indiana Wesleyan University
Marion, Indiana, December, 2009
This paper by Lynn Green takes the Alzheimer's Poetry Project as its subject and is the first formal research into our performance and writing techniques. Here is a quote from the paper, "A qualitative descriptive approach was used to describe behaviors during a poetry session, while a phenomenological method was used to extract themes from the data. Poetry provided the conduit for eight memory-impaired participants to express their memories in a caring environment. From the observations, poetry emerged as a positive intervention that allows for human connection and the resurfacing of self."