Dementia patients at Impulssenter care farm, Oslo, press apples together (Credit: Henriette Bringsjord)
This BBC article explores recent research demonstrating the benefits of gardening for elders and people with dementia.
Highlights include:
- In a University of Edinburgh study, those who spent time gardening showed greater lifetime improvement in their cognitive ability than those who never or rarely did.
- A study by the University of New South Wales found that Australian men and women in their 60s who gardened on a daily basis had a 36% lower risk of developing dementia than those who didn’t.
- Gardening has also been shown to improve attention, reduce stress, reduce falls and lower reliance on medications.
- In two studies of American adults, one found that those who gardened for more than one hour per week had a 66% lower risk of cardiac arrest. The other found that gardening was a “strong and independent predictor of positive bone density”.
View the full article and links to refererenced studies: