Creative Skills Can Develop With Dementia. “In some patients with dementia, specific musical and visual skills can be

enhanced, researchers at the University of California at San Francisco and Los Angeles report….Miller and his colleagues explain that ‘these processes have in common the recall of previously learned

information or images’ that permit them to continue ‘without the mediation of language.’

Importantly, while creativity continues, the quality of the creativity is different since it lacks an abstracting

or symbolic component, the researchers explain. In paintings, this results, for example, in realistic

depictions.” The researchers are fascinated by this glimpse into the machinery of creativity and the neurological locus of dementia. But, for the families devastated by the development of dementia in a loved one, this would be at best a poignant consolation prize, if you ask me.