Dr. Henry Schneiderman

By Cindy Mindell ~
WEST HARTFORD — As vice president of medical services for Hebrew Health Care, Dr. Henry Schneiderman is ultimately responsible for all medical practices and policies throughout the organization. He is also responsible for maintaining Hebrew Health Care’s reputation for providing exceptional care to older adults. In addition, as physician-in-chief at Hebrew Home and Rehabilitation Center, Schneiderman sees patients daily, and oversees a staff of several other full-time physicians, as well as the Hebrew Home and Rehabilitation Center nursing staff.
In addition to his responsibilities at Hebrew Health Care, Schneiderman holds the rank of full professor of medicine (geriatrics) at the University of Connecticut Health Center and continues to teach at UCONN and at Hebrew Health Care. He was named 2005 “Clinician of the Year” by the American Geriatrics Society.  
Schneiderman will participate in the panel discussion, “Dementia and the Arts,” at the Bushnell Theater on Sunday, Mar. 18. He spoke with the Ledger about how society deals with dementia, and how the arts can enhance the life of older adults. 

Q: What are some of the myths or misperceptions you encounter around dementia, as it affects human cognitive and creative abilities?
A: There is a widespread and pernicious assumption that dementia destroys creativity. It does not, though it may cut off much of the creative process as it progresses, and may cut off forms of expression that had been utilized throughout earlier life, e.g. verbal skill. In fact, the efforts to continue to communicate as one’s faculties deteriorate do constitute a form of struggling creativity, and are as admirable as they are painful and heartbreaking to observe. There can also be an assumption that all arts and especially music should be designed to be soothing for demented persons, as though ease were the goal rather than living as fully and vibrantly as one can. Finally, there is a widespread presumption among the public that dementia is unitary; nothing could be further from the truth. An artist with early dementia is more different from one with end-stage dementia, than from you or me.

Q: People in our society seem to fear dementia more than any other aspect of aging, or even death. Do you find that’s so? And, if so, how do you respond to those fears? 
A: This is such a crucial domain. The level of terror and denial is extraordinary, and our society pushes the topic away almost as relentlessly as it does any consideration of aging and death. The fact is, the only way to avoid getting old is to die young, and none of us will be immortal, and many of us will be demented at the end of a long life. Yet our society and our advertisers depict perpetual youth as though this were the solitary goal for all. In fact, many of us who work in health care, and other persons who have thought about these things a great deal, do not yearn to live to an exceptional age, but rather yearn to live very fully, with as much physical and mental and spiritual integrity as we can, for as long as we can; and then to decline and die without a long period of suffering, indignity, or vastly diminished capacities.
We need to de-demonize dementia, and to help our medical personnel, and the public, hold the two contrasting principles together in mind and heart at all times: that the demented person is just the same as us – a person, with strengths and problems, trying to make the best possible of the particular stage on the journey of life in which he or she finds himself or herself – and also, at the same time, bearing a burden of loss that threatens the self and the behaviors whereby that self was defined, in his or her own eyes and in those of loved ones and of the world. If we see the demented person as something we could not be – an understandable but hurtful reaction of denial and distancing, and one that is familiar when the news of another dreaded condition like cancer causes a reflex inquiry, “What did he do wrong that I won’t?” – we will never muster our best empathy.

Q: How do the arts affect a person with dementia, and how does dementia affect a person creating art?
A: The arts stimulate and interest and puzzle and upset a person with dementia, just as they do you and me. The familiar work of art, such as a loved painting or poem, may continue to gratify even when a person has lost the faculty of articulating critique or art appreciation. For the creator, dementia may result in the re-use of familiar themes or tools, passages or verses; in the cruelest form, it will result in the production of work that in the artist’s earlier years would not have passed muster, either from technical decline or from a loss of refinement and character – the artist might make something that his or her younger self would have regarded as vulgar or obvious.
There are an infinite number of variations on this. Dementia can also strip away layers and details and lead to a more streamlined and essential work, one less lost in seeking glamorous surface or deliberate ambiguity – less artsy, truer, more honest.

Q: What aspect of “Dementia and the Arts” will you be addressing as a panelist?
A: I’ll talk about the high frequency of dementia, the likelihood that it has affected the family of everybody in the room, and the need for all persons to have some knowledge, insight, and ability to respond in a way that comprises compassion as well as personal upset and anxiety.
I will also address the role of the arts in enriching the lives of persons with dementia, and will read aloud some of my own published poems that deal, directly or obliquely, with these themes.

Q: How long have you been writing poetry? Has your work as a geriatrician influenced your art? Have you used your art in your work with dementia? 
A: I have been writing poems badly since about 1967, better since about 1985. My work has influenced my writing, and the simplest link is seen in the poems about some of my patients, demented and otherwise, that I will read at the panel presentation. These poems, of course, mask personal identities in order to be compliant with HIPAA regulations, although most of my patients about whom I have spoken of poems, or showed a poem, have expressed the wish that their real names be used.

Q: What do you hope the panel discussion adds to the larger conversation on dementia and aging? 
A: I hope it adds to the ease that all who participate – including the audience – feel about the aged and the demented. And, of course, as a practicing artist myself, I passionately hope that it augments many individuals’ determination not to postpone, but rather to go paint or dance or write a poem, not next year when we delude ourselves into thinking we will be less busy, less tired, but today.

For more information on Hebrew Health Care’s upcoming program “Dementia and the Arts” at the Bushnell in Hartford on Sunday, March 18, see story.