NCT06645652

Visual Arts Interventions With Older Adults

Feasibility and Preliminary Effects of a Drawing-based Intervention on Cognition and Wellbeing of Community-Dwelling Adults at Risk for ADRD

• Status: Not Yet Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 50 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Northeastern University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 55 Years – 85 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The present study investigates the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effects of a novel visual arts-based intervention in an older adult population. In a randomized controlled design, two arts-based interventions will be evaluated with a group of 50 participants.

Detailed description

A two-arm randomized controlled study will be conducted to obtain within-group ratings of feasibility and acceptability, as well as between-group differences in drawing skills after training. In the drawing intervention, participants will learn and train drawing skills through exercises that target attention, perception, and visuospatial reasoning. In the active control condition, participants will navigate virtual art galleries. Both interventions will be completed remotely and at home. Participants will complete in-lab assessment sessions before and after the training. Each intervention consists of 6 weeks of training for up to 2 hours a week, including up to 1 hour of a self-guided lesson and prompted daily drawing practice adding up to 1 hour in the drawing intervention and 2 1-hour sessions of virtual gallery exploring per week in the arts appreciation intervention. The pre-test is administered within one week of the start of training and the post-test is administered within one week of training completion.

Conditions

• Feasibility Study

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Training in observational drawing	* 6 weeks of online gallery browsing based on different topics * Daily practice drawing from observation with training adding up to 1 hour a week * Documenting progress and reflection writing
BEHAVIORAL	Arts engagement through digital galleries	* 6 weeks of online gallery browsing based on different topics * 2 hours of weekly activities consist of reading and navigating technology * Reflection writing

Timeline

• Start date: 2025-07-01
• Primary completion: 2025-10-31
• Completion: 2025-12-31
• First posted: 2024-10-17
• Last updated: 2025-05-23