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American Morning
Paging Dr. Gupta: Art, Dementia
Aired June 09, 2003 - 08:45 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Seven million Americans suffer from some form of dementia. And while the focus is generally on the tragic loss of memory and function, Dr. Sanjay Gupta today has a story for us of one woman whose artistic vision has expanded as her disease progresses.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's one of the most troubling of all diseases, dementia, robbing people not only of function, but also of the ability to think and communicate, the very essence of what makes us human.
While doctors have struggled to gain insight into this terrible affliction, an artist in her 60s may be providing a new window into the mind through her art.
BRUCE MILLER, DOCTOR: As her language problems later in life deteriorated, she not only maintained her artistic vision, but also expanded it, and the work that she produced became even more exciting.
GUPTA: Jansy Chang (ph) could no longer speak, but, as the saying goes, her pictures were telling a thousand words.
MILLER: Her previous precise detail had been somewhat replaced by these broader shapes. Anyone who sees them, I think, is taken by how extraordinary the work has become.
GUPTA: A comparison of the top drawing done seven years into her illness, to the bottom drawing done 13 years into illness.
MILLER: You can see here an earlier cafe drawing with more precision. And then as the disease progressed, the second picture shows lots of distortion of detail and remarkably almost no detail on the right side of the painting. So, she's beginning to neglect the right side of her world, because of the degeneration in the left hemisphere.
GUPTA: That's not surprising, given that the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body.
Finally, her body too ravaged by disease to continue, her deepest thoughts reflected in her final painting.
MILLER: The emotions in the faces were different, haunted, frightening faces, more abstract than earlier pieces. GUPTA: Understandably, Ms. Chang's (ph) family did not want her to be filmed for this piece, but she represents one of the most severe forms of dementia, frontal temporal dementia. While the right side of her brain controlling creativity and spatial images was intact, dementia affected the left side of her brain, depriving her of both language and logic.
MILLER: It has made us think that there is a balance between language and visual creativity. You lose the linguistic functions, and the visual creativity may emerge.
GUPTA: Remarkably, cognitive decline often leads to greater artistic freedom.
IRENE ROSNER DAVID, ART THERAPIST: She became at a certain point less concerned about the quality of the finished product, and more focused on, and delved into the art process.
GUPTA: Jansy Chang (ph) may even offer a new approach to coping with dementia.
MILLER: We're going to really need to focus on the strengths of our patients, develop them, maintain them, rather than emphasizing to the families that there are profound deficits. She really is a model and a hope for other people who suffer from dementia to maintain their fight, to maintain their creativity.
GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
Aired June 9, 2003 - 08:45 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Seven million Americans suffer from some form of dementia. And while the focus is generally on the tragic loss of memory and function, Dr. Sanjay Gupta today has a story for us of one woman whose artistic vision has expanded as her disease progresses.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's one of the most troubling of all diseases, dementia, robbing people not only of function, but also of the ability to think and communicate, the very essence of what makes us human.
While doctors have struggled to gain insight into this terrible affliction, an artist in her 60s may be providing a new window into the mind through her art.
BRUCE MILLER, DOCTOR: As her language problems later in life deteriorated, she not only maintained her artistic vision, but also expanded it, and the work that she produced became even more exciting.
GUPTA: Jansy Chang (ph) could no longer speak, but, as the saying goes, her pictures were telling a thousand words.
MILLER: Her previous precise detail had been somewhat replaced by these broader shapes. Anyone who sees them, I think, is taken by how extraordinary the work has become.
GUPTA: A comparison of the top drawing done seven years into her illness, to the bottom drawing done 13 years into illness.
MILLER: You can see here an earlier cafe drawing with more precision. And then as the disease progressed, the second picture shows lots of distortion of detail and remarkably almost no detail on the right side of the painting. So, she's beginning to neglect the right side of her world, because of the degeneration in the left hemisphere.
GUPTA: That's not surprising, given that the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body.
Finally, her body too ravaged by disease to continue, her deepest thoughts reflected in her final painting.
MILLER: The emotions in the faces were different, haunted, frightening faces, more abstract than earlier pieces. GUPTA: Understandably, Ms. Chang's (ph) family did not want her to be filmed for this piece, but she represents one of the most severe forms of dementia, frontal temporal dementia. While the right side of her brain controlling creativity and spatial images was intact, dementia affected the left side of her brain, depriving her of both language and logic.
MILLER: It has made us think that there is a balance between language and visual creativity. You lose the linguistic functions, and the visual creativity may emerge.
GUPTA: Remarkably, cognitive decline often leads to greater artistic freedom.
IRENE ROSNER DAVID, ART THERAPIST: She became at a certain point less concerned about the quality of the finished product, and more focused on, and delved into the art process.
GUPTA: Jansy Chang (ph) may even offer a new approach to coping with dementia.
MILLER: We're going to really need to focus on the strengths of our patients, develop them, maintain them, rather than emphasizing to the families that there are profound deficits. She really is a model and a hope for other people who suffer from dementia to maintain their fight, to maintain their creativity.
GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
