Comments on: Therapeutic gardens and the elderly http://peopleplantcouncil.org/2013/06/therapeutic-gardens-and-the-elderly/ To promote research and communication of the influence of plants on people Tue, 16 Jul 2013 13:39:17 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.9 By: JemmaHawkins http://peopleplantcouncil.org/2013/06/therapeutic-gardens-and-the-elderly/#comment-6 Tue, 16 Jul 2013 13:39:17 +0000 http://peopleplantcouncil.org/?p=532#comment-6 Our research team here in Cardiff, Wales, UK have been researching the benefits of gardening for healthy ageing for the last 5 years. For healthy older populations we have seen benefits of having an allotment garden (i.e. vegetable/fruit growing plot) for older people’s physiological health and psychological well-being including body mass index, hand-grip strength, perceived stress levels, and self-esteem. Our qualitative research has further enhanced our understanding of these benefits, and others, particularly for retired individuals. Specifically, we find that the reported benefits of gardening activity in later life can be attributed to either ‘doing’ gardening activity, or ‘being’ at the garden. Our research results can be found on our website: http://www.cardiffmet.ac.uk/ghop

We would be very interested in extending this research into clinical populations to explore whether the benefits of gardening activity arise in a similar way.

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