Mental Health

Call for Papers: The Architecture of the Psychiatric Milieu

Nautilus. Photo by Henry Domke, http://henrydomke.com/index.htm
Photo by Henry Domke, www.henrydomke.com

Thanks to a member of the EDRA (Environmental Design Research Association) group on Linked In for posting this:

Call for Papers: The Architecture of the Psychiatric Milieu

The editorial team of Facilities, a peer reviewed journal, are pleased to announce a call for papers for a special issue dedicated to an exploration of evidence based approaches to establish the most appropriate architecture for the psychiatric milieu.

Facilities for psychiatric care have a tradition of standardization in design and treatment dating back to the moral treatment paradigm of the 1850s. As normative approaches to psychiatric care have changed, so too do the facilities used to house, treat and manage patients. The shift to evidence-based design (EBD) in hospital
architecture means that the psychiatric milieu must follow suit. The search for evidence to model psychiatric facilities is an important endeavour. But psychiatric illness is not like orthopaedics or cardiology, where the needs and satisfaction of staff and patients can be relatively easy to assess and evidence can be easily measured. Mental illnesses are a heterogeneous group of disorders, and there is a risk in categorizing all psychiatric illnesses together and treating them alike. Environmental influences that exacerbate one condition frequently assist with another. As such, Facilities is soliciting approaches that are specific to:

  • geriatric psychiatry
  • mood disorders
  • the non-affective psychotic spectrum
  • psychiatric emergencies
  • substance-related disorders
  • facilities for forensic psychiatry

This list is not exhaustive… and interested authors are encouraged to contact the Guest Editor with alternative proposals. Please kindly take note of the following requirements if you wish to have your paper
considered for this special issue:

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Effect of Garden Walking on Elders with Depression

Photo by Naomi Sachs

One of our members, a hospice RN, sent me this interview with Dr. Ruth McCaffrey, DNP, Sharon B. Raddock Distinguished Professor in Holistic Nursing at Florida Atlantic University. It was originally published in the digest of the American Holistic Nurses Association.

How have you come to study garden walking for older adults with depression?
I have been working over the last three years on developing an evidence-based program using reflection during garden walking to increase life satisfaction and reduce depression. The work began as collaboration between the Morikami Japanese Museum and Gardens and myself. The Morikami has had many people write letters and tell them that the gardens had a healing quality and helped them in a time of great sadness or in a time when strength was needed. The garden designer has created several gardens in the Japanese healing traditions and uses the idea of nine healing elements in nature. We were able to apply for and receive a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services to create a research study with three different interventions, individual reflective walking, guided imagery walking and a comparison group who had art therapy. From that work we developed a book for use in an individual reflective walking program through the garden with a group session at the beginning of the walks, after three weeks and again after six weeks. This program has proved to be very successful and popular…

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