Museum object handling: A health-promoting community-based activity for dementia care

Abstract

In a quasi-experimental design (N = 80), this study examined the wellbeing impact of handling museum artefacts, by testing for differences across domain, time, gender and stages of dementia. The results indicated that people with early and moderate impairment showed positive increases in wellbeing, regardless of the type of dementia but those with early stage dementia showed larger positive increases in wellbeing. We can feel confident that for most people with early- to middle-stage dementia, handling museum objects in a supportive group environment increases subjective wellbeing and should be considered part of a health promotion strategy in dementia care.