For your information, a garden is a very important place to visit, explore, and spend quiet time alone for people with Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
The presence of plants and flowers will help the patients by giving them a healing effect and stimulate reminiscing. Therefore, if you are somehow looking for a way on How to Tend the Garden for Dementia Patients, then keep on reading this article
The Benefits
There are at least three main benefits which the Dementia patients can get from the garden.
- The first benefit is the garden can encourage physical activity in a safe way. They can sit, walk, eat, play a game, or talk with their families & caregivers, and feel unrestrained.
- The second benefit is that the garden can stimulate the senses. Natural elements of the garden will bring comfort and trigger memory recall for the patients who may relive a distant memory of they were growing up
- The last benefit Tend the Garden for Dementia Patients is that the garden can soothe their soul. The garden can relieve the patients’ frightening anxieties and agitations.
Tips for the Caregiver
There are several things which you need to consider when you are starting the gardening project. The first one is that you need to involve the Dementia patient when you are starting the project in design, selection of favorite plants, and planting placement.
This will help the patient to reminisce about experiences such as growing & picking flowers, cooking, and eating vegetables. The second one is that you need to add raised planting beds to be used as seating areas if the patient has mobility problems or they cannot bend.
The third one is that you need to choose the right scents and colors of plants and flowers to stimulate the patient.
The fourth one is that you need to make sure that pathways are level non-slip surfaces. The fifth one is that you need to add markers to guide the patient which way they should go, such as flower pots or containers
The sixth one is that you need to add rails along pathways to make the patient becomes familiar with the garden. The seventh one is that you need to make sure that any furniture is comfortable and provide protection from the sun.
The last one on How to Tend the Garden for Dementia Patients is that you need to make sure that there are no toxic plants or flowers which can cause skin irritation.