healing environments in radiotherapy - Agnes van den Berg

Healing Environments in Radiotherapy Project Report
Nature from Indoors
At UMC St. Radboud, a new building will incorporate a number of healing
patios with different kind of flowers, plants and other natural elements.
Some patios will be accessible from wards, while others are only intended
to provide a view. However, the literature suggests that there are more
possibilities for implementing nature in healthcare settings. In the previously
discussed study by Ulrich (1984), it was demonstrated that views of nature through windows can
already have a significant beneficial impact on patients: participants had a more favourable postoperative
recovery process if windows in their rooms overlooked a small stand of trees rather than a
brick wall. Since the publication of this study, the benefits of having a natural view from the window
have been replicated in several studies, both inside and outside health care settings (see Van den
Berg & Van Winsum Wenstra, 2006, Chapter 3, for an overview). Hence, it is advisable for hospitals
to “create an attractive, spacious environment, with big windows you can open and that offer a view
on green” (Gerrie van Lagen, Casa Terra).
While access to and views of outdoor areas are important in healthcare settings, it is also vital to
provide natural elements inside the building, especially in circumstances where logistics or the
patient’s health status make going outdoors more difficult. Elements like indoor plants or an
aquarium are simple solutions to bring nature indoors.
Besides having a direct influence on the air quality, indoor plants may affect health through
psychological mechanisms, such as mood improvement or reduction of stress and pain (van den
Berg, 2005, p.31). For example, Lohr et al. (1996) randomly assigned computer tasks to participants
who sat either in a room with plants or in one without. These authors found that participants in a
room with plants responded quicker and experienced less stress than participants who preformed
tasks in a computer room without plants. Larsen et al. (1998) showed that mood improves with a
higher density of plants. In a recent review of the literature, Bringslimark and colleagues have
pointed out that the benefits of indoor plants are contingent on features of the context in which the
indoor plants are encountered and on characteristics of the people encountering them (Bringslimark,
Hartig, Grindal, & Patil, 2009). According to these authors, a more robust set of findings is needed to
better understand the conditions on which benefits of indoor plants depend. According to A. Kwint
from Plants for People, this should not prevent hospital managers from investing in indoor plants
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