The objective of the research is to observe how group art therapy,
especially molding, affects the cognitive function and depression of dementia
elderly. The target group was 14 elderly with dementia disease at the
hospital located in city D. Then, they were divided into two groups,
experimental group and control group. The patients in the experimental group
were to get art therapy twice a week, 20 times in total. To study the effect,
the before-and-after result was analyzed using MMSE-KC and SGDS.
Finally, the difference in cognitive function and depression between the
experimental group and control group was observed using SPSS Window
13.0 program and t-test was done. The following shows the result of the
research. First, after examining the result of MMSE-KC on elderly with the
age of 65 or older, the difference after the art therapy was statistically
significant. Second, according to the analysis of SGDS, after the art therapy,
the dementia elderly depression diminished and the depression was
statistically significant. In conclusion, art therapy does have a positive effect
for the dementia's patients with psychologically unstable mind, deteriorated
cognitive function, and depression. Thus, group art therapy is a helpful
program to enhance cognitive function and depression for the patients. In the
future, various group art therapy programs will be developed.