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Painting Helps Alzheimer's Patients Remember

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May 29, 2009 6:22 pm US/Mountain

Painting Helps Alzheimer's Patients Remember

Reporting
Mike Hooker
BRUSH, Colo. (CBS4) ― For people with Alzheimer's disease, painting can sometimes unlock stories from their lives. Every week across Colorado more than 80 groups of Alzheimer's painters meet to create art and re-create memories.

"They remember things that they haven't remembered in years," art therapist Amanda Matthews said.

The group in Brush meets once a week for an hour of therapeutic painting.

Alzheimer's patient Jake Walker painted a trick horse named "White" with the help of a therapist who says when he's not painting the 88-year-old is usually pretty quiet.

Walker actually had a horse named White he taught to push baby buggies. There was a picture to prove it.

Walker's wife of more than 70 years says when watching her husband paint she sees more of the man he was before Alzheimer's.

Another of Walker's paintings led the therapist to family photos, including one of Walker with the horse he taught to hold a pipe in its mouth.

"I didn't know all the tricks that he could teach them to do -- smoking pipes and pushing baby buggies. It's just amazing," art therapist Jan Lockard said.

Lockard says everyone with Alzheimer's has a story. Sometimes it just takes a paintbrush to spark the memory.

One of Walker's paintings is among those being auctioned off along with works from professional artists. The Colorado Alzheimer's Association's annual art auction fundraiser is next week in Fort Collins.

Additional Resouces

"Memories in the Making" art auctions: June 4 - Fort Collins, Drake Centre June 11 - Denver, Invesco Field and Mile High Stadium. For more information, click the link below.



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