LEARNING VALUE SYSTEMS WITH THE ALZHEIMERS

Although not exclusively a phenomenon specific to our age, it is clear that not all cultures or people within them deal equally with conflicts. Nor do they, likewise, admit or reject difficult and unfavourable situations. Most often, however, the way to meet these kinds of situations are through negative emotions, one of which is being resignation. By being resigned, we try to accept, sometimes that we have made mistakes. At other times, we simply consider life being tough and we cannot do anything about it. When this feeling takes over, any effort to improve the situation seems useless and absurd (Milne, 2001). This is certainly not the path taken by the participants of this extraordinary project.

Going beyond caring for basic needs and improving quality of life, the first sufficient and the second necessary. Aspects that have up to now not been much studied have been worked on during different workshops. From the time they are born, individuals build up their identity by interacting with others. It is a continuous process that lasts throughout our lives. It is common for people diagnosed with Alzheimers, or with any other mental or physical illness, to experience how their environment of friends and loving relationships become weaker and their former way of living interrupted. Thanks to these workshops, Art and Culture as Therapy, the patients have been able to continue to develop their identity, which had broken and become distorted during the process of the illness. The way this was carried out was mainly through reference groups, of their familiar and social surroundings, and also through other groups they have been able to interact with that were provided with by the team of directors of the project.

For the second time, young people have formed one of these groups, this time they were from the Hotel Management School in Murcia. In society, the attitude towards the youth and adolescence has varied throughout the ages. In general, this period of life has been considered to be characterised by a limited ability to take decisions and dependence upon their parents. Nowadays, however, the youth and adolescence have reached a point of great prominence and power, playing an important part as social actors. The efforts they have made, as volunteers in the workshop, are a proof of this. We have been hearing for years that value-systems are in crisis and that there is an urgent need to renovate to secure a more rational and humane society. Solidarity, tolerance, responsibility, etc, must strive against indifference and political apathy, privacy and hedonism. However, these youngsters demonstrate many of the social and personal values that are presumably in crisis: family, tolerance, respect, help, solidarity, care, work, listening, honesty, loyalty, etc.

The majority is united by the fact that they have a family member with the illness. Therefore, their starting point is a true and close experience of the Alzheimer illness. They have experienced the cruel situations of a family and a personal collapse. From this experience, they have learnt the importance of being helpful and to be a source of care; they have improved their ability to deal with pain and the illness; they have learnt how to help in different ways; how to be able to understand the patient. Simply, it has been a matter of knowing how to listen, maintain the calm in front of an inevitable final and above all, to feel the strength of the human being. Among their main reflections after participating in the workshop, the majority of these young people drew out the hotchpotch of generations, of dealing with people of different ages, other realities and almost from another world. Additionally, they emphasise as a value, of importance of the family, above all during the bad moments, and its basic role within the illness.

Once again doors open to new experiences, motivations to learn and help and being curious about the ‘different’. Although it could sound surprising, they furthermore obtained the mutual benefit of this lived experience, being marvelled by the literal memory of many of the recipes and the gentleness underlining them.

This is the third and the most recent workshop within this line of investigation, which, for some years, has occupied the lives of magnificent professionals and, above all, has enriched the lives of the patients and their families. I hope this enrichment also applies to some of the youngsters who participated in this experience. I am unable to finish these lines without thanking again the directresses of the project, Carmen Antúnez, the neurologist and Halldóra Arnardóttir, Phd, Art Historian for their sincere and complete dedication. 

M. Pilar Martín Chaparro

Department of Social Psychology. University of Murcia.