Recently, the level of health care and national income has increased in our society, and through the overall improvement in the lifestyle conditions, the average expected lifespan have also increased. Therefore the absolute number of elderly populatio...
Recently, the level of health care and national income has increased in our society, and through the overall improvement in the lifestyle conditions, the average expected lifespan have also increased. Therefore the absolute number of elderly population has expanded and it is expected that we will enter an aged society.
The most important problem in the aged society is physical and the mental health of the elderly. Especially, the physical problem of the elderly is disorders associated with increasing age. In addition to the physical and mental health problems, helplessness due to a sense of failure and confusion, and negative psychological effects due to lack of self love of ego-identity are added harmful effects.
In this research, I examined those that are actually admitted to the nursing homes, live away from family, live in limited spaces, and have gradually decreased their societal interaction. These elderly are prone to experience alienation, nostalgia, helpless, uneasiness and depression. Therefore among the elderly who have entered the nursing home and have diseases associated with increasing age, group art treatment was performed in order to provide a platform for spontaneous self expression and experience social and emotional support. Pre- and post-treatment effects were investigated to discover the result on minimization of depression and self expression and action among the elderly.
The research participants were those of more than 65 years of age and living with diseases associated with increasing age at the G elderly nursing home in Incheon city. Seven participants were chosen based on the statistical requirements of depression level between 14 to 24 points in the KGDS total score.
The length of the research was from December 2007 to April 2008 and was performed once a week with each session being 60 minutes; a total of 15 session were performed. The research tool utilized is Korean depression scale of KGDS test and the pre and post verification were performed on the test groups and statistics. The Korean depression scale data analysis was performed on the Korean SPSS WIN 13.0 and quantitative analysis was performed using the paired t -test. Qualitative test was performed to analyze the elderly emotional expression and action modification through regression records.
The conclusion that was gained through the research results are as follows.
First, the group art treatment was effective in minimizing the depression effect of those with diseases associated with increasing age. According to the group art treatment using the Korean elderly depression scale, KGDS test, the average overall depression of the pretest group was 17.42. The post-test results decreased to an average of 6.71. Through the results, the group that were given the art treatment showed an average decrease in the level of depression and is statistically significant (t=6.578, p〈.01).
Secondly, the emotional expression and action of the elderly group art treatment was measured through regression analysis and it showed that there were positive changes. Through the art treatment, self confidence and a sense of achievement were experienced and through this type of satisfaction, they formed a more positive self emotion along with positive emotional expression and actions.
Through the results as a basis, I hope to give several proposals.
First, in this research, the elderly with diseases associated with increasing age were the participants and the effect of the minimizing depression through group art treatment was researched. However, due to the limits of the group, it was difficult to generalize the results. In the future, “depression” of various higher levels should be researched further to include elderly that live at home, live in facilities, have dementia, and more. It is my hope that the new research will discover results that could be generalized.
Secondly, there have been many researches regarding art treatment until now but there is a lack of data regarding art treatment that took into consideration elderly physical discomfort. Therefore through the cases, I hope that the art treatment program becomes a basic data for a deeper, continuous research.