research

Access to Nature DVDs – Spring Sale!

Access to Nature DVDs

If you have not seen the terrific award-winning DVD series “Access to Nature for Older Adults,” this is your chance. To coincide with the Environments for Aging conference, this DVD series is being offered during the month of April at a significant discount (50% off!) for TLN members. We’ll be sending out an email on Tuesday, 4/5 to our members with a keycode to buy the discounted DVDs.

To join the TLN, just sign up for our mailing list. It’s free and you’ll get occasional newsletters, as well as discounts like these. On the right-hand side of this blog page, see “Get TLN Blog posts emailed to you!” Enter your email and click “Subscribe.” That’s it! But do it soon, the email with the keycode goes out on Tuesday, April 5th.

About the Access to Nature for Older Adults DVDs
The series was developed by Susan Rodiek and colleagues at the Center for Health Systems & Design, Texas A&M University.

This fast-paced and lively set of three half-hour videos includes dramatic images, professional narration, and a rich variety of site photos, 3-D animations, diagrams, sketches, and interviews with senior residents and world-renowned experts on this multidisciplinary topic.

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HEALTHCARE DESIGN 2014 – Catch the Earlybird Special!

Royal Terns by Henry Domke

Royal terns. Photo by Henry Domke, www.henrydomke.com

What: HEALTHCARE DESIGN 2014
When: November 15-18, 2014
Where: San Diego, CA

I always look forward to HEALTHCARE DESIGN, the annual conference produced by Vendome Healthcare Media and the Center for Health Design. There’s only one problem: It’s too good! There are always too many sessions that I want attend. Ah, the agony of choice. Not such a bad thing, really. And this year, it’s in sunny San Diego. The facility tours are sure to be excellent, and the education sessions look great – below are a few that I hope to attend, and one I’ll be speaking at (“Therapeutic Landscapes for Specific Patient Groups”) with my book co-author, Clare Cooper Marcus.

Earlybird registration is open for another two weeks (ends 8/8), so get on it.
Hope to see you there!

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Landscapes for people with cancer – A (former) patient’s point of view. Guest post by Kevan Busa

Busa at lake

Kevan at the lake.

Kevan Busa first contacted me in August of 2012. He was in his last year as an undergraduate in landscape architect at SUNY-ESF, and had been excited about the upcoming semester abroad program in Barcelona, Spain…until he was diagnosed with Leukemia. When he emailed me, he was in his fourth out of five rounds of chemotherapy, and was scheduled to be in Buffalo for three months to get a bone marrow transplant. He wrote, “I talked to my school and doctors and i think that i am going to be doing an independent study of healing spaces while i am there.” Seriously? You plan on doing research while you recover from chemo and a bone marrow transplant? Wow. And he did! His research was subsequently published in the June, 2013 issue of Landscape Architecture magazine. I asked him to write a guest post for the TLN Blog, and he graciously agreed. The post is below.

Looking back at by far the hardest year of my life, I have realized the potential that I have to share my information with the professional world and especially people interested in healing spaces. There is more information being added every day that will help so many people in the future and am honored to be adding my research and experience to the Therapeutic Landscapes Network.

I was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and went through a Bone Marrow Transplant within the past year. There was a lot to take in when I got sick and to think about, especially life. Being a landscape architecture student at the State University of New York: College of Environmental Science and Forestry, the topic of healing spaces from within a hospital setting was always on my mind. I went through chemotherapy rounds as the world around me was enjoying summer and the outdoors. All I wanted to do was to be outside when I wasn’t getting treatment.

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Environments for Aging Conference 2013

EFA13_banner

Annual Environments for Aging Conference meets in New Orleans

APRIL 6 – 9, 2013 | The Roosevelt Waldorf Astoria Hotel

The annual Environments for Aging Conference meets in New Orleans, April 6-9, 2013. The three-day event offers the latest strategies and ideas for creating attractive and functional living environments that meet the needs of our aging population. Register now in order to receive early bird discounts.

Professionals attending — architects, design professionals, government officials and aging experts – will come together to share common goals in the areas of building, architecture and design. The conference offers networking opportunities with peers and myriad workshops in the latest innovations and best practices in the design of long-term and residential care settings.

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Earth Day 2012 – Sustainable and therapeutic landscapes

Jupiter Medical Center Photo by Michiko Kurisu, courtesy of Studio Spout.

The retention pond at Jupiter Medical Center in Jupiter, FL also serves as large water feature, viewable from the Cancer Treatment Center. Photo by Michiko Kurisu, courtesy of Studio Spout.

Happy Earth Day!

Human health cannot be treated separately from the natural environment.
– Hippocrates, 4th Century BCE

We at the Therapeutic Landscapes Network believe that the best landscapes for health are those that benefit people and the planet. In the most recent issue of Research Design Connections, an article by Naomi Sachs titled “Landscapes for Health: Therapeutic AND Sustainable Landscapes in the Healthcare Setting,” is featured in the Expert’s Corner.  If you subscribe to RDC, you can log in and read the full article on their website. This article will also become a chapter in a book on therapeutic landscapes by Naomi Sachs and Clare Cooper Marcus, to be published by Wiley in 2013.

Below are some excerpts from the article:

Complementary Approaches
Sustainable and therapeutic landscapes complement each other in myriad ways. Facilities have the opportunity to “feed two birds with one seed” by meshing the two design philosophies. Landscape architects are the architect’s and engineer’s best friend here, because they are trained to see the “big picture” as well as details that will best benefit the site and the people served. In many cases, one strategy comes first and the other follows. (more…)

“Soft Touch For A Silent Voice: Therapeutic Gardens for Veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” – Masters Thesis by Michelle Parkins

Photo by Michelle Parkins, Soft Touch For A Silent Voice

Photo by Michelle Parkins. "The response to the veterans survey about water really illustrated to me the connections veterans (and others) have with water as a healing aid."

I met Michelle Parkins last May when I was teaching at the Chicago Botanic Gardens Healthcare Garden Design Certificate Program, and was immediately impressed by her commitment to her MLA research project on gardens for veterans with PTSD and other combat-related issues. Since then, Michelle has completed her thesis, which is available as a beautifully bound book at www.lulu.com/product/paperback/soft-touch-for-a-silent-voice. Below is the thesis abstract and a bit about Michelle, a veteran herself.Therapeutic Gardens for Veterans. Michelle Parkins and Annie Kirk

Michelle (that’s her on the left in the red jacket), in collaboration with Annie Kirk, principal at Red Bird Design and founder of the Acer Institute, recently created Therapeutic Gardens for Veterans groups on Linked In and Facebook. These groups are a “Collaboratory to advance therapeutic garden environments as an extension of support and care for veterans & their families.” I encourage everyone interested in this subject to join in on the conversation.

Here is what Michelle writes about herself and her interest in this subject:

My adventures in life have seemed to always evolve around the military; growing up an ‘Army Brat’ triggered my interest. My time in the Navy consisted of great travel overseas and the education I received both in and out of Navy was invaluable. Due to an injury, my time in the Navy was cut short, however my respect for my fellow veterans and active duty military has never gone away. As a veteran using the Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system, I saw first hand the need and potential benefits for utilizing the outdoor garden spaces as VA hospitals and clinics. Although I have completed my Master’s of Landscape Architecture I plan to pursue the research and possible consultation of gardens for veterans.

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“Methodologies frame how we produce knowledge.” Guest post by Carol Krawczyk

Photo by Carol Krawczyk

Today’s guest blog post is by Carol Krawczyk, a landscape architect whom I first met at the 2010 ASLA Healthcare and Therapeutic Design Professional Practice Network tour of restorative landscapes in Washington, D.C. We have been corresponding ever since, and Carol has become an active member of the TLN groups on Linked In and Facebook, as well as the new TLN “Autism and Special Needs” subgroup on Linked In. Her insights about research, especially research methodologies, are important in this field, where we are placing more and more value on evidence-based design (EBD). Carol’s doctoral work focuses on environments for children with autism. If this is an area of interest, please join our Linked In group, and stay tuned for a page devoted to this topic on the TLN website. Many thanks, Carol!

Methodologies frame how we produce knowledge
By Carol Krawczyk, ASLA

Naomi Sachs and I began corresponding through this blog regarding the topic of research methodologies. Naomi had summarized an article on gardens and walkways about people who lived in senior assisted living facilities (ALFs). The author had observed seniors in two ALFs and had interviewed staff and therapists at these facilities in order to recommend important landscape design suggestions. I commented that while this research was important, it was still deficient because we –the readers, researchers and practitioners who would use this information – did not know why the senior citizens made decisions regarding which pathways to take, which seats to sit on, what views they particularly enjoyed, etc. So, at Naomi’s request, I’ll describe some of the research methods I like to use and the reasons why.

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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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“Outdoor Environments for Children with Autism & Special Needs” in InformeDesign’s ‘Implications’

April Implications 2011 'Outdoor Environments for Children with Autism and Special Needs' by Naomi Sachs and Tara VincentaHot off the press! InformeDesign’s latest issue of Implications (Vol. 9, Issue 1) just went live today, and it features an article by Naomi Sachs and Tara Vincenta, “Outdoor Environments for Children with Autism and Special Needs.” I mentioned this article in my April 13th blog post about Autism Awareness and Landscape Architecture month, but it had not come out yet.

So take a look by linking to the pdf here: http://www.informedesign.org/_news/april_v09-p.pdf.

 

And here is the resource list on autism and related disorders and children and nature mentioned in the article , which will also soon be available for download from the TLN Get Out and Play! page:
PDF of resources on autism and nature-based learning and play for InformeDesign’s ‘Implications’ (Vol. 9, Issue 1)

Tara Vincenta developed the Sequential Outdoor Learning (SOL) Environment and many of the design guidelines in our article are based on SOL Environment principles.

Many thanks to InformeDesign for giving me and Tara this platform to share our work. InformeDesign is an evidence-based design tool that transforms research into an easy-to-read, easy-to-use format for architects, graphic designers, housing specialists, interior designers, landscape architects, and the public. They are, in my humble opinion, one of the best resources out there.

And if you know of people who would benefit from the information in this post, please pass it on!

 

It’s in the Dirt! Bacteria in soil may make us happier, smarter

Yum, dirt! Photo by Guy Ambrosino.A big thank you to Horticulture Magazine for featuring this post on their website. We are honored to be chosen as one of their Best Gardening Blogs 2011!

AND to the National Wildlife Federation for featuring this article as a guest post on their blog!

Many people, including me, talk about the restorative benefits of gardening (see last Tuesday’s post, for example) and the reasons why it makes us feel good. Just being in nature is already therapeutic, but actively connecting with nature through gardening is value-added. And why is that? All sorts of reasons have been posited: It’s a meditative practice; it’s gentle exercise; it’s fun; it allows us to be nurturing and to connect with life on a fundamental level.

And some recent research has added another missing piece to the puzzle: It’s in the dirt. Or to be a little more specific, a strain of bacterium in soil, Mycobacterium vaccae, has been found to trigger the release of seratonin, which in turn elevates mood and decreases anxiety. And on top of that, this little bacterium has been found to improve cognitive function and possibly even treat cancer and other diseases. Which means that contact with soil, through gardening or other means (see Elio, above), is beneficial. How did this discovery come about?

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