Creative ageing – it’s all in your mind

When creative inspiration strikes, it doesn’t matter when or where you are – embrace it.

For Joan Gibbs it was lying awake in bed one night when the idea for a song quickly conceptualised.   Jolting out from behind the covers, the 75-year-old hurriedly began scribing her thoughts.

“I'm apparently a bit tone deaf. I appreciate good music, but I find it hard to keep a tune,” Joan laughs.

Having never written a song before in her life, Joan found herself penning the concept for one on ‘memories and life’, relating it to her love for bushwalking, where mountains, wide vistas and dark valleys form part of life’s journey.

“Memories remind us of how it used to be, the future is before us, the path we're yet to see.”

She’d later share it with a group of her peers at the retirement village where she lives at Cooranbong – a group of older people who, along with Joan, are participating in a 10-week song writing program designed to explore how the creative arts can support healthy brains and heathy minds as we age.

“My family wasn’t really musical, although I did fiddle with the piano when I was younger,” Joan says.

“But our daughter Michelle is very musical; and our son-in-law Blake is a Hollywood composer who creates music for movies and trailers. So, I knew a little bit about the recording process.

“I'm nowhere up to his level,” Joan chuckles, “but I've learned so much.”

Although the world of watercolour painting is more familiar to Joan, who worked as a maternal and child health nurse for more than three decades, she concedes the creative song writing experience was rewarding and fitted well with her mission to stay mentally active as she gets older.

“It's been a great exercise to expand and stretch the mind, which is important,” she says.

“But important too is keeping your body active, because that helps to have a clearer mind. It's the big picture, where you need to keep your body healthy, your mind active, have good social connections, a healthy diet - all of that comes into play.”

Ageing Australia – the stats add up to living longer

Today, one in six Australians is 65 years of age or older, making up about 16 per cent of our total population.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare says the number and percentage of older Australians is expected to continue growing. By 2066, it’s projected older people in Australia will make up between 21-23 per cent of the total population (ABS 2018).

And as the number of older people increases, so too does their life expectancy.

The current life expectancy for Australia in 2022 is 83.79* years, up 0.18 per cent from 2021. In fact, Australia enjoys one of the highest life expectancies in the world, ranking 8th out of 60 developed countries. That's higher than the UK (81.65) and the US (79.05).

The key to healthy ageing?

Living longer is one thing, but how do we increase our chances of staying well, maintaining a healthy brain and a healthy mind as we approach the twilight years?

It’s understood that staying mentally and physically active is important for maintaining social, cognitive and emotional well-being as well as delaying, or preventing, the onset of dementia.

Creative activities offer a promising approach to engage thinking, emotions, creativity and imagination; and complement physical activity to promote well-being in older adulthood.

Well-being can be different things to different people at different times.  The World Health Organization says well-being is not just the absence of disease or illness. It’s a complex combination of a person’s physical, mental, emotional and social health factors.  Well-being is strongly linked to happiness and life satisfaction. In short, well-being could be described as how you feel about yourself and your life.

So, what is creative ageing?

Although creative ageing is a movement that’s been recognised for more than 50 years, it has become an area of burgeoning academic interest across the past 20 years.  In broad terms, creative ageing is using arts and cultural activities to promote imagination and support older people to age well.

“We know engagement in creative activities is associated with a range of benefits, including improved mood and well-being in older adults,” University of Newcastle’s Associate Professor Helen English, musician and music sociologist, says.

“However, there is a major gap in knowledge regarding the specific effects that creative arts engagement has on brain and cognitive health.

“We are tackling this from two angles: one is by a researching the effects of participation in creative activity programs through measures of cognitive, well-being and brain activity before and after each course; the second is by observing and working with community music groups to learn from them what works and to trial new ideas.”

Investigating the best ingredients for brain health

A melting pot of expertise in music, art making, art design, as well as clinical psychology, cognitive ageing and neuroscience is trying to identify the important ingredients of creative activity programs that drive benefits in well-being and brain health.

The University of Newcastle inter-disciplinary research team, founded by Associate Professor English from the School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences and Dr Michelle Kelly and Professor Frini Karayanidis from the School of Psychological Sciences, collaborates with researchers at the University of Melbourne with expertise in music psychology and music therapy.

“Research already shows that sustained engagement in creative activities promotes well-being and can protect and even improve brain functioning,” Helen says.

"We are trying to identify the key ingredients in creative activities that bring these benefits; to compare the effects of different creative activities and to establish the optimum duration for engagement."  - Associate Professor Helen English

Through a number of research projects, the Creative Ageing Research Group,** which now includes Dr Sharon Savage and a growing group of University of Newcastle researchers and students, is working to develop evidenced-based creative activity programs that can promote well-being and brain health of older adults.

“Ideally, we want to develop creative programs that are engaging and stimulating, and suitable for a range of deliveries and different living environments,” Helen says.

The starring role creativity plays in healthy ageing

According to Frini, any complex, pleasant, social activity is good for the brain – it’s good for our social and personal well-being, but also, for brain engagement and creativity.

“Creativity requires higher order, frontal brain activity – these areas interact with other brain areas and help you interpret what you see, hear or feel and represent it in a particular way through art, music or movement.

“And those creative activities bring you out into the world. So, whether you're painting in plain air, or you're playing a musical instrument, with a group of people, it means you are engaged.

“And that engagement is very much part of what maintains the brain and creates the opportunities for challenge and growth.”

Previous creative ageing research studies have focused more on people’s personal response to the experience – how pleasant it was, how it made them feel.

The Creative Ageing Research Group is investigating whether older adults’ brains process information differently, after participating in creative activity.

“Are they performing cognitive tasks better than before, relative to a group that hasn't done that intervention? Can we see changes in their electroencephalogram (EEG), that suggests particular networks, and especially those frontal networks, are working differently?”

Frini says being able to show that a creative arts program changes the brain gives evidence of its immediate, and potential long-term impacts.

“If we maintain people's engagement in these types of programs, are we creating protective mechanisms in the brain that in the longer term will reduce their risk of dementia or the onset, or delay the onset of cognitive decline?”

Expecting to score a place in the program of his choice – music, 77-year-old former school teacher Doug Mogg found himself faced with art making.

“I've never been a person who likes to express themselves in artwork by drawing or painting,” Doug, who lives at Jewells, says.

“I appreciate there are a lot of people who have this inbuilt motivation but I'm not like that. I always get frustrated when I try to reproduce something, or, as the facilitator will say, 'draw what's in your mind'. And I'm thinking, ‘I have absolutely nothing in my mind’,” he explains.

Married for 53 years to his beautiful wife Cyndy, who still tells him which shirt to wear each day, Doug admits he warmed to the art classes.

“We both lead pretty busy lives – we’re involved in so many other things that by the time Friday morning comes around, it's almost relaxing to walk down to art class.  It's been good. You're never too old to do art.”

Doug’s advice to other older people is plain and simple.

“Keep your brain active, as often and as much as you can.”

Registered clinical neuropsychologist Dr Sharon Savage said by comparing song writing with art making activities the team could explore both the common ‘ingredients’ of benefit to brain health, as well as identify any activity-specific improvements for older adults.

“It may be that both activities help with staying focused or encourage greater flexible thinking.  It could also be that each boosts skills in a different way. For those doing art making, we might see some rise in memory for visual information, while those doing song writing might show a boost in memory for auditory information.”

Clinical psychologist and co-founder of the Creative Ageing Research Group Dr Michelle Kelly added “engagement with creative activities goes beyond the cognitive benefits. Socialising with others in these activities promotes well-being and mental health.”

Early indicators suggest key to benefits is engagement.

“Courses need to engage participants fully for maximum benefit,” Helen says.

"Engagement is likely to be strong when we are creating, whether writing, painting or playing a demanding piece of music."

Interestingly for people with a dementia diagnosis, recent research also points to the engagement bringing benefits, rather than the activity itself.

Transformative music engagement rolled out on map

Project 2

With the overall goal to investigate what makes music engagement transformative for many older people, this project began by mapping the locations of active music communities across Australia.

Using the interactive Time Layered Cultural Map (TLC) software developed at the University of Newcastle, under the leadership of Emeritus Professor Hugh Craig, this research is a deep dive into the culture and practices of music groups, which are often founded and led by a dedicated and enthusiastic community musician.

“These are also the kind of groups that are recommended in social prescription for their social, cognitive and physical benefits,” Helen says.

Expected outcomes include a blueprint for transformative music activities, resources for aged-care providers, and more accessible information through the music map.

Aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals