Art gallery-based interventions in dementia care

Section A reviews whether arts-based activities for people with a dementia (PWD) have significant cognitive, social, and psychological benefits for this population. There is a variety of theoretical perspectives on dementia that encompass the biological, psychological, and social effects of the disease on the wellbeing of PWD. Visual arts may be an appropriate way of addressing some of the challenges that PWD face by providing a means of ameliorating some of their cognitive, social, and psychological difficulties. Literature from the field of arts-based activities with PWD suggests that there is no apparent theoretical conceptualisation in the area, as most studies have attempted to evaluate various art programmes with no clear rationale for expected findings; rather, they have taken a more exploratory stance. However, they indicate that arts-based activities can have social and psychological benefits by increasing confidence, enthusiasm, enjoyment, social contact, mood, quality of life, and ratings of depression. The review concludes with a rationale for why it is important to expand the current evidence base on arts-based activities for PWD. Section B: Dementia refers to a variety of diseases that are characterised by cognitive difficulties and an overall decline in daily living skills. Arts and health interventions may be particularly valuable ways of improving the lives of PWD and their family carers. This exploratory study involved six people with mild to moderate dementia and six family carers attending an arts-based intervention at a major London art gallery for three sessions over three weeks, in which they engaged in art-viewing and art-making. Using audio recordings to record PWDs’ responses, rather than standardised measures, which are often problematic with this population, the study sought to explore possible changes in cognition of PWD during the intervention, namely episodic memory and verbal fluency. Using a mixed methods design, data were collected at five points and analysed using content and thematic analyses. The findings suggested that episodic memory and verbal fluency appeared to improve during the art gallery-based intervention. This was substantiated by family carers who also reported that PWD showed increased mood, confidence and social interaction, and that they valued the shared experience and learning opportunity. Whether these changes can be attributed to the intervention is a matter for further research beyond this exploratory study. Future research is proposed to further understand the implications of these preliminary findings. Section C presents a critical appraisal of the research. Research skills that have been learned and developed over the course of the process are discussed, such as increased awareness of the benefits of working within a wider research community. There is consideration of the need to communicate clearly and sensitively with other professionals from differing backgrounds and organisations, as well as the importance of building on a coherent evidence base when designing a research project. Better organisation relating to recruitment and investigation into recording during the art-viewing sessions at the gallery are identified as aspects that would be done differently, as well as consideration of using a case study approach. Clinical consequences of the research are discussed, such as utilising a community psychology approach and involving art and creativity in therapeutic sessions. Finally, further research in the area is considered, such as by expanding the study and using robust neuropsychological measures to detect cognitive change

Parent abuse: Can law be the answer?

© Cambridge University Press 2012This article reviews the different forms of legal interventions which may be available to address parent abuse. It seeks to examine the evidence as to which are actually used currently and the problems which are inherent in them. We do this both by examining the statutory basis of the existing potential legal remedies and reported cases relating to those provisions, and by drawing on evidence from a small-scale study of relevant professional workers in one city. We conclude that while recourse to the police, and hence potentially the criminal justice system, is most frequent in practice, the criminal justice system is not suited to tackling the issue. Other interventions, such as anti-social behaviour orders and injunctions, also reveal problems. Law struggles to find an effective response to such a complex problem. Notwithstanding the acknowledged limits of law in changing behaviour, we argue that law could be used more effectively to reduce the incidence and impact of parent abuse

Art gallery-based interventions in dementia care

Section A reviews whether arts-based activities for people with a dementia (PWD) have significant cognitive, social, and psychological benefits for this population. There is a variety of theoretical perspectives on dementia that encompass the biological, psychological, and social effects of the disease on the wellbeing of PWD. Visual arts may be an appropriate way of addressing some of the challenges that PWD face by providing a means of ameliorating some of their cognitive, social, and psychological difficulties. Literature from the field of arts-based activities with PWD suggests that there is no apparent theoretical conceptualisation in the area, as most studies have attempted to evaluate various art programmes with no clear rationale for expected findings; rather, they have taken a more exploratory stance. However, they indicate that arts-based activities can have social and psychological benefits by increasing confidence, enthusiasm, enjoyment, social contact, mood, quality of life, and ratings of depression. The review concludes with a rationale for why it is important to expand the current evidence base on arts-based activities for PWD. Section B: Dementia refers to a variety of diseases that are characterised by cognitive difficulties and an overall decline in daily living skills. Arts and health interventions may be particularly valuable ways of improving the lives of PWD and their family carers. This exploratory study involved six people with mild to moderate dementia and six family carers attending an arts-based intervention at a major London art gallery for three sessions over three weeks, in which they engaged in art-viewing and art-making. Using audio recordings to record PWDs’ responses, rather than standardised measures, which are often problematic with this population, the study sought to explore possible changes in cognition of PWD during the intervention, namely episodic memory and verbal fluency. Using a mixed methods design, data were collected at five points and analysed using content and thematic analyses. The findings suggested that episodic memory and verbal fluency appeared to improve during the art gallery-based intervention. This was substantiated by family carers who also reported that PWD showed increased mood, confidence and social interaction, and that they valued the shared experience and learning opportunity. Whether these changes can be attributed to the intervention is a matter for further research beyond this exploratory study. Future research is proposed to further understand the implications of these preliminary findings. Section C presents a critical appraisal of the research. Research skills that have been learned and developed over the course of the process are discussed, such as increased awareness of the benefits of working within a wider research community. There is consideration of the need to communicate clearly and sensitively with other professionals from differing backgrounds and organisations, as well as the importance of building on a coherent evidence base when designing a research project. Better organisation relating to recruitment and investigation into recording during the art-viewing sessions at the gallery are identified as aspects that would be done differently, as well as consideration of using a case study approach. Clinical consequences of the research are discussed, such as utilising a community psychology approach and involving art and creativity in therapeutic sessions. Finally, further research in the area is considered, such as by expanding the study and using robust neuropsychological measures to detect cognitive change.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

A fateful legacy of childhood: the deportation of non-citizen offenders from the UK

This article argues that individuals who arrive in the UK as children, or who are born in the UK to those arriving as migrants, should never be deported as a consequence of criminal offending, even as adults. When individuals arrive in the host country as children, they typically have no agency in such decisions and so did not choose to be put at the risk of deportation as a further consequence of offending, nor could they be expected to have done so. The risk of deportation was simply put on them by the actions of others and therefore they should not be subjected to an additional, discriminatory consequences for their offences. This article presents a maximalist and minimalist policy response. The maximalist response is to exclude all those who arrive in the UK as children from the legal power of deportation. The minimalist policy response is to exempt from deportation anyone who could have become a British citizen (and thus immune from deportation) but for the fact that they were a child at the earliest point at which they could have done so

Book Reviews

EARL WARREN: A POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY. By Leo Katcher THE JURY AND THE DEFENSE OF INSANITY. By Rita James Simon LAWYERS AND THE COURTS: A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE ENGLISHLEGAL SYSTEM 1750-1965. By Brian Abel-Smith and Robert Stevens HUGO BLACK AND THE SUPREME COURT: A SYMPOSIUM. Edited by Stephen Parks Stricklan

Transnational Hindu law adoptions: recognition and treatment in Britain

Publisher version: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=5915788&jid=IJC&volumeId=5&issueId=02&aid=5915780This article examines how the adoption of children under Hindu law in India is regarded by British private international law and immigration law. Through an analysis of case law, it focuses particularly on how British judges regard the legitimacy of exclusion by the British immigration control system of children who have been adopted under a ‘foreign’ legal system which essentially permits private adoption arrangements. Examining the background to the regime of Indian Hindu law adoptions (which applies to Sikhs as well as Hindus), and the private international law and immigration rules which apply to such adoptees in the UK, the article finds some evidence in the judicial decisions of a more activist, human-rights-based, plurality-conscious position being taken. However, tracking the case law further, the article concludes that such activism has not been followed through in more recent decisions leaving the conflictual position between transnational adopters and British legal systems largely unresolved

Parents, children and the porous boundaries of the sexual family in law and popular culture

This article focuses on a perceived ideological overlap between popular cultural and judicial treatments of sex and conjugality that contributes to a discursive construction of parenthood and parenting. The author perceives that in both legal and popular cultural texts, there is a sense in which notions of ‘natural’ childhood are discursively constituted as being put at risk by those who reproduce outside of dominant sexual norms, and that signs of normative sexuality (typically in the form of heterosexual coupling) may be treated as a sign of safety. These ideas are rooted in ancient associations between fertility, sexuality and femininity that can also be traced in the historical development of the English language. With the help of commentators such as Martha Fineman, the article situates parents and children within a discourse of family which prioritises conjugality, with consequences for the ways in which the internal and external boundaries of families are delineated

International Conceptions of the Family

This article examines the evolving way the ‘family’ and ‘family life’ have been understood in international and regional human rights instruments, and in the case law of the relevant institutions. It shows how the various structural components which are considered to constitute those concepts operate both between relevant adults and between adults and children. But it also shows that important normative elements, in particular, anti-discrimination norms, operate both to undermine the perception of some structures as constituting ‘family’, and to modify those structures themselves. This raises the question how far human rights norms should be seen as protecting family units in themselves or the individual members that constitute them. Key words Human rights – family – family life – gender discrimination – marriage – same-sex relationships - parental relationships – violence against wome

Sterilization of men with intellectual disabilities: whose best interest is it anyway?

This article examines the ethical and legal issues raised by the involuntary sterilization of men with intellectual disability. It traces how, after the demise of eugenic reasoning, social policies of normalization and care in the community provided new justifications for sterilizations. It also examines how, ironically, modern arguments about promoting male sexual freedom have come to be used as a justification to sterilize. Through examination of recent cases on the sterilization of men with intellectual disabilities, this article explores the legal framework of the ‘best interests’ test and the ‘least restrictive alternative’ provisions in the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and argues that sterilization is usually unnecessary, disproportionate and not the least restrictive option. It also argues that the least restrictive alternative provisions contained in the 2005 Act need to be more rigorously applied