Spotlight focus: Opening Minds through Art (OMA)

Opening Minds through Art (OMA) is an award-winning, evidence-based, intergenerational art-making project for people with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of neurocognitive disorders.

Aldersgate is the only retirement living community in North Carolina to offer this unique, ground-breaking project to its elders. Through OMA, elders express themselves, despite their diagnosis of dementia. The projects are intentionally structured to promote the social engagement, autonomy and dignity of the artists with dementia.

The OMA art-making process involves carefully structured steps aimed at maximizing the possibility of creative expression. Elder artists are provided with manageable choices and failure-free activities that allow them to become active agents in their own creative process. Each artist is paired with a volunteer in six, one-on-one art-making sessions. The relationship-building between the elder artist and the volunteer is a win-win for all parties—elders with dementia have a no-risk environment for creative expression and volunteers can build meaningful relationships.