Connie Midey
The Arizona Republic

PHOENIX (May 13, 2008) -- With a smile as bright as her red jacket, Alvina Alvarez is a beacon in the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art lobby.

The 73-year-old Phoenix woman confides she's in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease and was hesitant to join the group waiting for a docent-led tour. She feared what people would think of her mental state.

Instead, she says, "they ask us what we think about the art."

Alvarez is part of the Banner Alzheimer's Institute Arts Engagement Program, a trial program in which people with Alzheimer's disease and their care partners make regular, guided visits to the Scottsdale museum, the Phoenix Symphony and the Phoenix Art Museum.

Whether involvement in the arts improves brain function remains to be proved. But art and music, as well as getting out to enjoy them with loved ones, are medicines easy to swallow, with side effects that are nothing but positive.

In a museum exhibit space, Alvarez and her daughter, Lina Alvarez Van Vleet, put their heads together as they examine works by photographer Lyle Ashton Harris. For one of the artist's large pieces, a video plays, its haunting images of people in movement superimposed on a still photo.

"I think the people are remembering something," Alvarez says, her initial reluctance to join the group no longer in evidence.

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