Creativity Matters: The Arts and Aging Toolkit is designed for the arts and aging services fields. This resource explains why and how older adults benefit from participating in professionally conducted community arts programs. See detailed examples on program design, implementation and evaluation.

Research by Dr. Gene Cohen shows that older persons participating in varied, structured creative arts programs conducted by professional artists experience significantly better overall health, significantly fewer falls, and significantly fewer visits to the doctors. What is remarkable about the Creativity and Aging Study is that after just a year into the study the cultural groups, in contrast to the control groups, were showing areas of actual stabilization and improvement apart from decline—despite an average age which is greater than life expectancy. This pattern then continued throughout year two of the study. These results point to powerful positive intervention effects of these community-based art programs run by professional artists. They point to true health promotion and disease prevention effects. In that they also show stabilization and actual increase in community-based activities in general among those in the cultural programs, they reveal a positive impact on maintaining independence and on reducing dependency. This latter point demonstrates that these community-based cultural programs for older adults appear to be reducing risk factors that drive the need for long-term care.

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