The impact of community-based arts and health interventions on cognition in people with dementia: a systematic literature review

Objectives: Dementia is a progressive condition, affecting increasing numbers of people, characterised by cognitive decline. The current systematic review aimed to evaluate research pertaining to the impact of arts and health interventions on cognition in people with dementia. Method: A literature search was conducted utilising PsychInfo, Cochrane Reviews, Web of Science, Medline and British Humanities Index databases. Seventeen studies were included in the review, including those related to literary, performing and visual arts. Results: The review highlighted this as an emerging area of research with the literature consisting largely of small-scale studies with methodological limitations including lack of control groups and often poorly defined samples. All the studies suggested, however, that arts-based activities had a positive impact on cognitive processes, in particular on attention, stimulation of memories, enhanced communication and engagement with creative activities. Conclusion: The existent literature suggests that arts activities are helpful interventions within dementia care. A consensus has yet to emerge, however, about the direction for future research including the challenge of measurement and the importance of methodological flexibility. It is suggested that further research address some of these limitations by examining whether the impact of interventions vary depending n cognitive ability and to continue to assess how arts interventions can be of use across the stages of dementia

Cultural sustainability as a strategy for the survival of museums and libraries

Cultural sustainability has become a growing priority within sustainable development agendas, and is now often depicted as a fourth pillar, equal to social, economic, and environmental concerns. Museums and libraries play a unique role within cultural sustainability by preserving their communities’ heritage. However, sustainability policy and research within these sectors still tends to focus on the social, economic, and environmental pillars. This article provides a critique of sustainability policy and research for museums and libraries. It argues that more explicit coverage of cultural sustainability is required to not only improve the contributions of museums and libraries to cultural sustainability, but also to provide an increased understanding and appreciation of the value of these institutions necessary for their continued survival

All together now: A symphony orchestra audience as a consuming community

This study examines the nature of communal consumption in the context of audience experience of the performing arts. Building on existing literature on consumption communities and ritualistic perspectives on shared event-based consumption, it uses focus groups and participant observation to investigate the experience of members of a UK symphony orchestra's audience as a consuming community (a 'consumity' in short). It finds tensions between respondents' perceptions of their individual and collective experience, framed within a pervasive anxiety about the sustainability of both audience and art form. It concludes that the communal aspect of audience experience is more complex and inflected than current notions of shared consumption acknowledge, in particular with respect to the audience's sense of itself over time. It concludes by questioning the absence from current arts marketing discourse of a more integrated view of the experience of customers in a temporal context

Cultural globalization and arts journalism: The international orientation of arts and culture coverage in Dutch, French, German, and U.S. newspapers, 1955 to 2005

This article charts key developments and cross-national variations in the coverage of foreign culture (i.e., classical and popular music, dance, film, l