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August 16, 2022
A new study shows that a cultural or artistic visit, even experienced from your living room, significantly improves the well-being and quality of life of the most isolated people.
Like a window on the world, screens could well serve to improve the life and health of many French people, seniors and isolated people who suffer from a lack of social life. In any case, this is the conclusion of a Canadian randomized trial, published in the journal Frontiers in Medicine this August 16, and which demonstrates how visits to virtual museums can affect the quality of life of people stuck at home.
Art like a breath of fresh air
For 3 months, Canadian researchers teamed up with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) to study the potential benefits of conducting weekly virtual tours on just over a hundred retirees. Half of the participants attended online guided tours on a weekly basis, while the other half refrained from participating in cultural activities. Their findings confirm an almost immediate benefit. According to the study, the intervention group showed significant improvements in their social isolation, well-being, quality of life, and frailty assessment scores. It is on this last data that the results are the most conclusive. Frailty is a vulnerable condition that exposes individuals to adverse health events and disabilities that negatively impact their quality of life. It is this same fragility that should be limited to maintain good health, both mental and physical. It would therefore seem that art participates in keeping the course, even isolated.
Cultivating social ties, an essential
More than a social problem, scientists have known today and for a long time that social isolation leads in its wake to many health problems: risks of vascular accidents, heart disease, mental decline and even premature death. . Effects amplified recently by the Covid-19 crisis and successive confinements. But this study allows today to glimpse solutions today. If nothing replaces the very fact of moving around, seeing people, leaving home, to cultivate social ties, it turns out that the same digital technologies that have been able to help teleworkers to keep in touch, can also do a lot for isolated seniors: regular interactive artistic activities from a computer or smartphone can improve the comfort and health of the most isolated. And apparently, it seems that physical health, as well as mental health, is even more pampered when combined with interactive artistic activities.
Remember, however, that exercise, outings and very real interactions, and no longer on screen, are still the simplest and best ways to maintain a quality of life and good health, whatever the age. According to Inserm, among the most sedentary seniors (more than 14 hours a day), 1h50 of moderate activity and only 10 minutes of more vigorous activity can reduce cardiovascular risk by 13%. A habit to keep as much as possible in a country where isolation affects almost a quarter of people over the age of 75, or about 5 million people.