Once again, The Journal of Therapeutic Horticulture, published by AHTA, has come out with an excellent publication chock-full of good information (they don’t have an online version yet, but that’s in the works for the future). Kudos to Editor-in-Chief Elizabeth R. Messer Diehl for all of her hard and good work. I’ve been more involved with the American Horticultural Therapy Association (AHTA) since joining the editorial review board last year, and I have to say, I think all landscape architects interested in designing Landscapes for Health should also be members of AHTA. They’ve really got their act together, and as with the Center for Health Design and the Environmental Research Design Association (EDRA), there is a lot of crossover for designers.
Here are some of the articles in this year’s Journal of Therapeutic Horticulture:
“Effect of Horticultural Therapy on Preventing the Decline of Mental Abilities of Patients with Alzheimer’s Type Dementia,” by Sonia J. D’Andrea, Mitchell Batavia, and Nicole Sasson
“Affordances of Ward and Garden in the Restorative Process of Hospitalized Children,” by Ismail Said and Mohd Sarofil Abu Bakar
“The Psychosocial Benefits of Exposure to Natural Settings in Long-Term Care: An Evaluation of the Wellness Garden Program at Glacier Hills Retirement Community,” by Suzanne Perry Slavens
“The Use of Therapeutic Horticulture in Cancer Support,” by Sheila B. Taft
“Development of Assessment Standards and a Computerized Assessment Tool for Use in Prevocational Horticulture Training Programs for Head-Injured Individuals,” by P.N. Williams, C. Kissel Bales, T.M. Waliczek, and J.M. Zajicek
AHTA Annual Conference Abstracts: “Harvesting Best Practices in Horticultural Therapy.”
While some of these articles are more specific to Hort Therapy, many are also useful to designers in helping to answer questions about what types of spaces are most appropriate for the populations that we serve.