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A Picture of Productivity

A former hospital administrator, diagnosed with Alzheimer's, keeps busy with painting

On his daily morning walks, Bob Winfree usually finds time to stop and smell the roses, jonquils, wisteria and other flowers that line his route.

Several times a week, he also takes time to paint them.

Winfree, 59, a former associate vice chancellor at Duke Medical Center, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in late 1997. Since then, his wife, Robin, has worked to keep him as busy and productive as possible.

Art has become part of the formula.

 

Last September, Bob Winfree began working with artist Katie Freeman as a form of therapy. The classes began not so much to change the course of his disease - which Robin describes as "in the moderate to severe range" - but to change the course of his life.

Winfree recently had a one-man show at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Durham.

Robin Winfree said of the exhibit: "The word I'm trying to get out is not just that he's got wonderful artwork, but to let other people know that Alzheimer's is not the stamp of death," she said. "My main focus in this is to let people who are diagnosed with Alzheimer's know there are still things out there they can do, that they can still be productive."

Duke neuropsychologist Deborah Attix said the therapy addresses adjustment and coping.

"One of the main themes of that is the importance of finding activities that are rewarding and meaningful," Attix said.

"It's enough that he can participate. We're promoting people showing up for life."

'Smoosh and twirl'

Bob Winfree is sometimes slow to digest a question and form an answer, but he is alert and understands the words.

Called "Mr. Van Gogh," he chuckled and flashed a big grin.

Bob used to fish and golf, and he said, "I get out a lot." But painting was a whole new world for the former hospital administrator.

His work is more in the style of Jackson Pollock than Van Gogh, according to teacher Freeman. She had no experience in art therapy, but was willing to try. "Bob and I just clicked," she said. "It's been fun and very interesting to me."

She shows up twice a week at Winfree's carport/art studio. The Indiana native calls some of her pupil's works "an evolution of swirls." Sometimes he uses brushes, and sometimes he just squirts paint onto the canvas and smears it around.

"What I like to do," he said, and paused, "is using the brushes, the different brushes."

Working with temperas, which are water-soluble, and craft acrylics in small bottles, Winfree likes the bright colors.

"The style he is doing now is modern, abstract. ... And he's done some stuff with oil pastels. Everything is swirls," Freeman said.

Bob's paintings are full of circles that spiral away like Slinkys on parade.

"The technique is what we call smoosh and twirl," Freeman said. "He really likes that. It's fun."

At first, Winfree picked pictures from magazines and Freeman attempted to teach him how to draw them.

"But it just didn't go that way," she said. "What he would end up taking from that picture was the color. He's got a really nice sense of color."

Moving forward

Attix said Winfree's experience shows how meaningful activity can impact an Alzheimer's patient's quality of life. She ran a support group for patients, and Winfree was a part of that group.

"Bob's artwork is a great example of the product of art therapy intervention," she said. "The whole message is that when one's loved ones are diagnosed with any kind of dementia, to not give up, but search for activities or therapies that may help them move forward."

She said theories once held that people with Alzheimer's could not benefit from training in anything. But those ideas have changed and Bob Winfree is proof positive.

"One of the main themes of our group is a consistent need for an effort by the patient and caregiver to identify activities that are rewarding and meaningful," she said. "The key is that inactivity breeds depression.

"When someone begins to experience a change, there is usually some sadness and fear associated with it, and a tendency to withdraw. With withdrawal, a mild depression can set in and exacerbate the problem and contribute to cognitive difficulties. It's sort of a vicious cycle."

That reasoning spurred Robin Winfree to come up with the idea of painting as a hobby for her husband.