Dementia protective efficacy by the combination of active and passive horticultural therapy for all persons concerned

Abstract

The benefits of horticultural activities in the garden have been demonstrated to have overall positive effects on the emotional health of elderly persons and care staff. Multi-sensory stimulation is beneficial to a wide variety of conditions typical of geriatric patients. Some therapies for elderly people are based on the philosophy that the activities to be carried out will also be stimulating to the senses. On the other hand, the dynamics of the senses play an important role beyond mere reason and sensibility in people's lives. Dementia should work on one of the high-risk symptoms that a variety of researchers of the whole world work on. And dementia was regarded as one of the lifestyle-related diseases, and it was thought that horticultural therapy was effective in the prevention. A spectral electrocardiogram (ECG) analysis (heart rate variance: HRV analysis) was performed using software, Mem Calc/Tarawa system (GMS, Japan), which is a non-invasive, real-time analysis system. The low-frequency (LF: 0.04-0.15 Hz) component reflects sympathetic and parasympathetic modulation, whereas the high-frequency (HF: 0.15-0.4 Hz) component mainly reflects parasympathetic modulation. The LF/HF ratio represents the measure of sympathetic/parasympathetic balance. Results of horticultural therapy garden walking as activity indicated that the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) during a horticultural therapeutic garden visit was retracted, the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) was confirmed to be enhanced. In this study, we examined influences of active or passive horticultural therapy activities on the psychological condition of all persons concerned. The hand care treatment in the role of the passive activities demonstrated the effectiveness of mind for healthy students and elderly people with dementia. Therefore, when combining and utilizing passive HT with active HT, the benefits of horticultural activities were demonstrated to have overall positive effects on the emotional health of elderly persons and care staff. These dementia preventive effects will be because horticulture and the plants are concerned with human life. We judged that building of horticultural technology by which the sustainability and continuation are possible was indispensable for everyone to share in this effect.