The council got its beginning with Home Caregivers Home Health, a locally owned home health service. Owner Terri Holland thought arts would make care more enjoyable — a conclusion that's been reached by others, as well, nationwide. All over the country, caregivers and artists are changing health care through their interactions, McQuade says.

In Utah, the council has a friendship network, to help people who are isolated at home, where there's a tendency to be "out of sight and out of mind," McQuade says. Artists go into homes once a week for eight weeks, then help the individual display the artwork that results.

Lloyd visits Buchanan, who is mostly home because she's on oxygen, weekly. They laughed their way through an Elvis movie — "he's still got the moves" — and when she gets her turntable fixed, she plans to dig out her collection of jazz records. "I'm hoping to turn him around," she jokes. Sometimes he plays the guitar and they sing; soon she's going to play piano for him.

McQuade visited a local quilting club and asked for volunteers, which is how Sine and another quilter, Kathy Souba, got involved making quilts for two young sisters who have chronic illness. Then Souba made one for an older, healthy sister.

"Of course this quilt meant more when I learned who the recipient was. I happened to pick the color pink and found out that was the color the mother would really like her to have. That was special. So was the joy" when they presented the quilts, Sine says.

The scrapbook project with Alzheimer's patients is called "Reminisce Respite," and each project is different. "We don't even care if the reminiscence is correct," says Nick Zullo of the association. "We have training for caregivers to not want to correct the person. We want them to have a good experience from the expectation of the person with dementia."

It helps people who feel lost with a loved one who's slipping away find something meaningful and enjoyable to do together.

As for the drama, Spencer's not a therapist, but he sees adolescents go through a process that's both healing and fun as they tell stories through drama. They also play games like you'd see in a high school drama class, but many of the children at the undisclosed treatment center "have hard backgrounds and have had a lot of pain in their lives," he says.

With drama, they can express themselves and come out feeling they've been physically, emotionally and spiritually taken care of and that they are safe in those ways, as well, he says.

Drama is, for everyone, transforming, whether it's a treatment or not. That's why the students at Sego Lily love it, too, he says.

For more information on the council, call McQuade at 485-6166.

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E-mail: lois@desnews.com