Interventional Study On Horticultural Therapy For Dementia Elderly

With the accelerating trend of population ageing,more and more senile diseases appears,among which dementia is a common disease which brings heavy burden to patients' families and our society.So far,human-beings don't have fully cognition of dementia,of which the cause is unknown,and there is no effective way to prevent and cure it,as well as any targeted drug which can play a "drug to the disease" effect.We can control the deterioration through treatment;however,no treatment can have 100% effectiveness.As a new intervention method,horticultural therapy is a new attempt to solve the social problems led by aging problem.The cognitive behavior theory of social work is the starting point,and individual cases and group work is the research method of the paper.on the basis of the research and analysis of horticultural therapy at home and abroad and the literature about dementia elderly,this paper uses the professional theories and methods of social work as the guide,adopts a set of evaluation system based on the evaluation table of horticultural therapy and the outline of interviews,individual case and group work were carried out in a community of Nanjing.Firstly,we analyzes the need of horticultural therapy for the dementia elderly in the community,and evaluates the social support system for the dementia elderly.Secondly,it involves the intervention of horticultural therapists to eight elders in the community.Finally,comprehensive evaluation of the emotional,social,cognitive and physiological functions of dementia patients after intervention was conducted by using qualitative research methods such as participatory observation and in-depth interviews.The results of the evaluation confirmed the effects of horticulture therapy on the elderly with dementia.The results showed that horticulture therapy was used to intervene in the elderly with dementia through the method of social work.It was found that horticulture therapy had three functions on elderly with dementia------prevention,treatment,and development.In the prevention,it make the elderly have physical and mental pleasure,and enrich their life;in terms of treatment,it can improve the physiological state of the elderly with dementia,enhance their cognition,divert attention,and stable their emotion;in development,it help cultivate their interests,make them keep in touch with fresh people or things so that to achieve benign interaction,improve the quality of life,control and delay the development of the disease.