AARP The Magazine - July/August 2011

The Scoop

Hydrangeas Can Heal Soothing garden views can be good for patients

More medical buildings are getting pretty exteriors, thanks to the growing therapeutic-garden movement. The idea: that patients recuperate faster when they have access to a garden. The evidence: a landmark study showing that people recovering from surgery requested less pain medication and were discharged sooner if they could see trees from their hospital windows. Take Kathy Hamilton,

One of the healing gardensat Legacy Emanuel MedicalCenter in Portland, Oregon.

62, a former patient at the Legacy Oregon Burn Center in Portland, Oregon. She says her views of the facility’s green space inspired her to get out of bed and get moving. That’s because nature is “restorative,” says Clare Cooper Marcus, a psychologist

and author of Iona Dreaming: The
Healing Power of Place—A Memoir.
When undergoing chemotherapy,
Marcus retreated to her own back-
yard: “All my anxiety and worries just
dissipated into the ground.”

—Chai Woodham

DO GOOD BY DOING NOTHING

If you’d like to donate money but don’t want to make the effort (or actually donate money), you’ll love “embedded generosity”—when companies include donations in their products’ prices. Purchasing Procter & Gamble goods, for instance, or redeeming Kraft coupons helps fund Feeding America, which provides food to low-income Americans. And skin care company Philosophy donates net proceeds from sales of nine bath and body products to nonprofits via its Shop For A Cause program.