The Impact of Horticultural Responsibility on Health Indicators and Quality of Life in Assisted Living

Abstract

<jats:p>This study used quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the impact of indoor gardening on elderly residents of a low-income assisted living facility over a 4-week period. Mastery, self-rated health, and self-rated happiness were pre-, post-, and post-post measured to evaluate whether a short-term introduction of indoor gardening that involved individual plant-care responsibility would improve these measures that are predictive of health and quality of life. Eighteen residents participated in four 2-hour interactive horticulture classes taught by a social horticulturist and a sociologist. Class members showed a significant increase in mastery, self-rated health, and self-rated happiness. The results of this study indicate that a basic horticultural activity, as simple as learning how to maintain a houseplant and taking individual responsibility for one, can have a short-term positive impact on the quality of life and on primary indicators of future health outcomes of older adults residing in assisted living facilities.</jats:p>

Indoor Nature Interventions for Health and Wellbeing of Older Adults in Residential Settings: A Systematic Review

“…receiving social visits (Brown et al, 2004), were just as effective as active nature-based interventions, for psychological wellbeing. Other studies found improvements in apathy during exposure to a Virtual Reality forest (Moyle et al, 2018), and in happiness and mastery following a horticulture activity programme (Collins & O'Callaghan, 2008), but both were based on small samples and lacked control groups.…”

“…Nine out of the ten active nature programmes involved interaction with real forms of nature through 'indoor gardening' (Brown, Allen, Dwozan, Mercer, & Warren, 2004;Lee & Kim, 2008;Powell, Felce, Jenkins, & Lunt, 1979;Tse, 2010); 'horticulture activities' (Barnicle & Midden, 2003;Collins & O'Callaghan, 2008;Masuya, Ota, & Mashida, 2014);or 'Horticulture Therapy' (D'Andrea et al, 2008;Yao & Chen, 2017) programmes. The distinction between these subtypes was unclear; all involved instructor-led activities related to cultivating plants, and most included group discussion.…”

“…The remaining outcomes comprised various measures of satisfaction (Riddick, 1984;Scott et al, 2014;Tse, 2010), engagement (Aslakson, 2010Eggert et al, 2015;Moyle et al, 2018;Powell et al, 1979), and self-perceived health, wellbeing, and QoL (Collins & O'Callaghan, 2008;Kieffer, 2014;Masuya et al, 2014;Yao & Chen, 2017). At least some significant improvements were reported in all five studies which employed gardening/horticulture programmes (Collins & O'Callaghan, 2008;Masuya et al, 2014;Powell et al, 1979;Tse, 2010;Yao & Chen, 2017). Increases in engagement occurred only with gardening (Powell et al, 1979), and not with photos (Eggert et al, 2015) or videos (Aslakson, 2010).…”

Effects of horticultural therapy: Perspectives of frail and pre‐frail older nursing home residents

“…Raske's study () was a qualitative one, but the sample consisted of a diverse group of residents, family members, staff and people in the community. The only study with which we can compare ours is that by Collins and O'Callaghan (). Our findings, from a different population group, echo their observations that engaging in indoor gardening brought happiness to older people in assisted living.…”

“…Horticultural therapy enhanced the quality of life of residents (Raske, 2010), improved their self-rated health and happiness (Collins & O'Callaghan, 2008) and significantly improved their life satisfaction and social networks (Tse, 2010). However, its use among older people who are frail and institutionalized remains under-studied and under-reported.…”