Abstract:

Introduction:
The elderly population is rising substantially, will also turn into a super-aged soon in Taiwan society. The elderly would be the deterioration of physical results in inability on daily routine, which causes depressive symptoms and cognitive decline. The caregivers and families are also under psychological pressure as well. The purpose of this study would develop the course of digital art creation is to inspire elders’ art expressive, improve their mental health. It combined expressive art therapy with Extended Reality (XR) and developed an immersive experiential education tool for art creation. What’s more, the course is based on the creation of traditional Chinese Brush Painting to help the elderly find themselves by nostalgic way. This research project would explore the empowerment of the digital art creation process of elders and the transformation of the mood of experience reconstruction. It enhances the elderly’s well-being and prompt their personal existence value.

Method:
The study cooperated with the Dementia Care Association, Taiwan, R.O.C. & Changhua Christian Hospital where intended to sample 8 elders with mild cognitive impairment as the research objects. The method of qualitatively analyzing the in-depth interviews of expressive art therapy between all the objects and two art therapists is invited. In addition, using one-group pretest-posttest design that questionnaire survey is made as the result of the reviews, the questions include four factors: social well-being, psychological well-being, self-actualization, and artistic spiritual development. There are 16 elders with an average of 74 years with mild cognitive impairment were surveyed through the experiments.

Result:
The result of this study includes satisfaction with course activities and the four factors mentioned above, and all the evaluations of the art creation courses. The elderly all enjoyed creating artworks by novel way. The results and recommendations are summarized as follows:
1. Social well-being is based to whether the elders close to their families or friends, and even the acceptance of strangers. Almost 90% elders from Changhua County Dementia Community Service Center gave satisfaction to share their artworks with their friends or families.
2. Bases on the entertaining experience and curiosity, the elders were having lots of fun and laugh while using touch screen with traditional writing brushes, and the psychological well-being acquired over 90% of satisfaction.
3. The user interface of XR system should be more user-friendly like straightforward options while choosing the types of brush or other functions for elders to create more friendly.
4. The art creation course should be designed progressively in order to let the elders adapt technological tools and fully integrate into the art world. In this study we design the evolution art therapy course to provide a new experience for people with dementia.

Acknowledgement：
This research is based on work supported by the National Science and Technology Council, Republic of China, under contract NSTC 111-2410-H-018-036-. The authors would like to thank the Dementia Care Association, Taiwan, R.O.C. & Changhua Christian Hospital for supporting this research.

Keywords:

Mild Cognitive Impairment, expressive art therapy, immersive experience, extended reality, art education.