From ScienceDaily: Could a plant "intervention" improve the well-being of patients in a difficult rehab process? Scientists from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and Sweden's Uppsala University investigated this question in a recent study of 436 coronary and pulmonary patients at a Norwegian rehabilitation center.
The results were published in HortScience. Ruth Kjærsti Raanaas, Grete Grindal Patil, and Terry Hartig studied the effects of an indoor plant intervention during a 2-year study conducted at the Røros Rehabilitation Center. The experiment showed that patients' overall physical and mental health improved during the program, but the presence of new plants did not increase the degree of improvement. One encouraging finding: pulmonary patients in the "plant intervention group" reported a larger increase in well-being during their rehabilitation program more often than lung patients from the "no-plant" control group.
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Photo: The reception area of the Røros Rehabilitation center during the plant intervention. (Credit: Photo by Herman Tandberg, Tandberg Industridesign.)