Nonverbal dialogue with the brain-damaged elderly.

In a population of twelve 63- to 89-year-old residents of a nursing home, rank-ordered scores of copying errors on the revised Benton visual retention test were found to be significantly correlated with the rotational shifts in the Minnesota percepto-diagnostic test. Residents on both ends of the continuum of brain damage could paint interesting, expressive and/or original pictures, in spite of the fact that the first eight residents were on psychotropic medication and the last four were occasionally handicapped by constructional apraxia. Ten adjudicators ranked pairs of figure drawings for each resident in decreasing order of 'aesthetic pleasingness' and 'originality'. Degree of brain damage was found unrelated to both measures. Interadjudicator agreement was stronger on 'originality' than on 'aesthetic pleasingness'. Some of the beneficial and provocative results of art therapy with the elderly are elaborated ans a plea made for accepting their observed creative performance as part of the realm of legitimate art.