Active garden therapy for the elderly and people with disabilities

Abstract

Garden therapy has been used in the world medical practice for many decades. There are many examples where human interaction with plants has a positive impact or facilitates the lives of various segments and groups of society: children, youth, elderly people, with mental health problems, people with disabilities, crime victims, patients with cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, mental health problems, drug addicts and alcoholics, combatants, victims of military or terrorist acts, etc. Garden therapy is the process of using plants and the garden to improve well-being through the effects on the mind, body and soul. Garden therapy combines gardening and rehabilitation and is a synthesis of landscape design, medicine and psychology. It can help work with different target groups: in hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation and cancer centers, hospices, as well as other medical and residential complexes. Despite this, garden therapy is still not widespread in Ukraine and requires wider development. This is due to the general set of social and health problems, as well as regional problems of modern times, including the post-Chernobyl factor, the mass factor of post-traumatic stress disorders among the affected population of the temporarily occupied territories and the contingent of ATO participants. Undoubtedly, the urgent task today is to develop garden therapy programs for recovery from illness and combating the stressful effects of prolonged self-isolation during quarantine activities related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The article considers an example of creating a location for active garden therapy for visitors to the Center for medical and social rehabilitation services in Melitopol, Zaporozhia region.