Modern medicine has dramatically extended people' average life expectancy and as a result, the period of advanced age has also increased. As population are rapidly aging, maximizing happiness and value in one's rest of life has become a pressing quest...
Modern medicine has dramatically extended people' average life expectancy and as a result, the period of advanced age has also increased. As population are rapidly aging, maximizing happiness and value in one's rest of life has become a pressing question. Under the present situation, the goal is how a senior person lives happier and healthier, not simply living longer. Therefore, government has found it necessary to do research on coping with old age while helping individuals actively solve his/her own problems. Fine art is a creative activity which helps develop the positive side of life, and for this reason, it is recognized as an important field developing seniors' artistic potentials and self-awareness. One learns from art a method of improving the quality of life and self-expression. Restoration of self-respect and esteem by transforming his/her own mental state is considered to be an important object of senior welfare field today.
This research paper studies about the process which proves that art programs designed for seniors are effective to a certain extent in mitigating depression and improving self-esteem. The paper studies five seniors among the ten candidates residing in B care hospital located at Daejon. The art programs studied by the research were held for 50 minutes once every week leading up to 14 sessions in total. The study conducted a pre-research about geriatric depression and self-esteem, and later conducted a post-research with the same content. The measuring methods utilized were KGDS (Korea from Geriatric Depression), SES (Self-Esteem Scale), DAP (Draw a Person Test), DAS (Silver Draw a story instrument), and the collected data were analyzed using SPSS WIN 12.0 statistical package. The data analysis conducted Paired samples t-test in order to find out the effect caused by the difference between pre and post depression/self-esteem test results of a studied person. Also, DAP and DAS test used Ok-Gumja's 'The theory and practice of art therapy evaluation method' and Lee-Gumae's 'The theory and practice of art therapy'.
The conclusions of the present research are as follows.
Firstly, the studied programs demonstrated positive effects in mitigating geriatric depression. The research found that psychological stability and stimulation and the process of naturally expressing oneself achieved through art activities could reduce geriatric depression.
Secondly. the program demonstrated positive effects in improving self-esteem. That one experienced a sense of frustration and achievement and the process of discovering his/her value and importance through mutual activities proved to be the important factor for improving self-esteem.
As a result, it is thought the art programs studied by this research would be effectively applied to other senior care hospitals after a further modification process.