Acting Classes In Assisted Living Improve Memory & Slow Cognitive Decline

Could learning to act Hamlet’s famous “To be or not to be” speech slow down or reverse dementia symptoms and general cognitive decline in the elderly? Dr. Helga Noice and Dr. Tony Noice, both faculty members and researchers at Elmhurst College, say it can.

For years now, the Noice's have been taking groups of older adults in nursing homes and assisted living facilities through small acting classes. Cognitive testing both before and after the class consistently find that the elderly thespian’s overall cognitive and short term memory capabilities improve immediately after the class ends, and follow up tests months later continue to show that participating in an acting class is a memory booster for the elderly. This suggests that acting lessons for the elderly has long term effects.

How Do Acting Classes Help Slow Cognitive Decline in the Elderly in Assisted Living?

It turns out the benefit of an acting class comes from doing what actors do to prepare to play a character. Actors will not just memorize lines by rote. Instead they will work to understand the dramatic structure of a scene. That is, they try to understand what the character wants and his or her motivations.

Helga Noice calls this process “active experiencing.” In order to act a scene, the actor must put themselves in the shoes of the character, i.e., he or she must empathize with the character.

It is this process that allows stage actors to efficiently memorize the waves and waves of text required for large roles. For example, Shakespeare’s King Lear has 27, 614 words. Probably a third, over 9000 words are the King Lear’s. Noice says the same processes can exercises the brains of seniors to the point where it starts to reverse the ravages of time on the brain:

The Noices divided the participants into three groups: 44 were given theater training, 44 were given art appreciation training in the visual arts and 36 were the control group. The researchers provided classes in a number of different settings -- assisted-living facilities, community centers -- and tested all the participants on various cognitive tasks such as word recall, short-term memory, quality of life evaluations and problem solving before and after the classes.

In the acting classes, a professional director presented a series of progressively more difficult acting exercises in which the participants had to learn lines and movement for the performance.

The participants were given short scripts, which they carried around and referred to as they did the scenes. Through repeated performances they absorbed some of the lines and movements, but never as a result of being told to memorize the script.

The emphasis of the classes was on the interactions with the other participants emotionally, physically and mentally. If they learned lines at all, Tony Noice says, and many did, "they did so on the fly."
(Memory takes a cue from acting, Los Angeles Times).

Acting is Pretending & Imagining, but the Effects on Cognitive Decline, Short Term Memory, Problem Solving, and Quality of Life are very Real

More from the LA Times article:

After the study, the theater group performed better than the control group on word recall and problem solving. They even scored significantly better than the visual arts group on problem solving. Overall, the theater group showed an increase in recall performance of about 18% and a 55% increase in problem solving.

After the training, the psychological well-being scale, which includes such qualities as personal growth, self-acceptance and positive relations were all higher for the new thespians than for the other two groups.

Since their early studies of the effects on acting on the elderly, the Noices' have developed a theater-based cognitive training program that they have used in various nursing homes and assisted living communities. Results continue to show a statistically significant improvement in short term memory, comprehension, and problem-solving skills, as well as perceived quality of life. Their work has earned them three grants from the National Institute of Health to continue their studies. Now it's garnering them national media attention.

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