Cognitive Health
Category: Children, cognitive health, mental health, physical health, therapeutic design
Title: Nature as a healer for autistic children (2019)
Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2018.10.014
Summary: This paper focuses on investigating the potential health and well-being advantages of engaging children with autism in nature. Guidelines for a sensory garden are provided, along with exploration of cognitive, mental and physical benefits of connecting with nature. Practical design elements are examined, along with a sight plan to demonstrate these principles in practice.
Category: Older adults, Dementia and Cognitive Health
Title: Effects of Horticultural Therapy on Asian Older Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial (2018)
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15081705
Summary: 29 older adults participated in 6 months of horticultural therapy within this RCT. Comparative to the control group, these adults experienced greatly improved feelings of social connectedness. Furthermore, their blood when examined showed reduction of markers which may indicate that horticultural therapy reduced inflammation, decreasing the risk of dementia.
Category: Older adults, Dementia and Cognitive Health
Title: Comparing the Effectiveness of the Frequency and Duration of the Horticultural Therapy Program on Elderly Women with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Mild Dementia (2020)
Link: https://doi.org/10.11628/ksppe.2020.23.1.35
Summary: The effect of a 15 session horticultural therapy program on health and well-being of women with mild cognitive impairment and dementia was examined. Results indicate that both short term treatment of 7 weeks and long term treatment of 15 weeks successfully improved participants feelings of satisfaction with life and reduced reported depression. Differences were found in the rate of improvement between these different programme lengths, leading to recommendations to have longer programmes with less weekly sessions for this specific service user group.
Category: Cognitive Health, mental health
Title: A Lower Connection to Nature is Related to Lower Mental Health Benefits from Nature Contact (2024)
Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-56968-5
Summary: A cross sectional online survey in Australia involving 2084 participants, looking time spent in greenspaces, connection to nature and levels of stress, anxiety and depression. The results show that visiting greenspace links with lower stress anxiety and depression and that this is moderated by how connected to nature a person is. They also found a potential underlying factor for this may be that individuals with a strong connection to nature are more conscious of nature.