Do Not Go Gently: The Power of Imagination in Aging

Narrated by Walter Cronkite, this award-winning film illustrates the benefits of incorporating creativity and expressive arts into the lives and treatment of elders. Noted gerontologist and researcher Gene Cohen, MD, PhD, addresses how the aging brain changes, and how the arts can help to delay the onset of Alzheimers, improve social interactions, challenge brain capacity, and influence the immune system. Creative activity can incite passion and productivity in seniors, thereby enhancing their sense of agency, independence, self-esteem, and self-worth.

From Eleanor Irwin, PhD, RDT, TEP:
This film is dedicated to helping seniors be as active and creative throughout life as possible. While research offers no promise of a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, there is simultaneously the recognition that imagination can foster plasticity of the brain, improving the quality of life. Activities such as sewing, music, dancing, cooking and art not only promote health and mental and physical growth, they also enhance life’s pleasures. This film recounts lives of many creative seniors. For example, there is the story of the women from Gees Bend, AZ who make astonishingly beautiful quilts, modern in composition, even though they live secluded lives. And the story of 90-year-old Frederick Franklin, a highly successful ballet dancer who continues to dance for the Cincinnati Ballet, and Leo Ornstein, 110, who continued to compose until the age of 100.  This video looks at the lives of active seniors whose lives attest to the power of creativity, adding vibrancy, color and pleasure to their days.

Total Running Time: 56 minutes, 54 seconds