Healing gardens and Alzheimer's disease

Abstract

In an attempt to move beyond traditional design guidelines to develop and design healing gardensfor Alzheimers disease facilities, the author presents his theory of remembrance therapy. Using Sedgewood Commons, a). Alzheimer'sfacility designed by the!.Mthor and located in Falmouth, Maine, as a prototype, this paper examines the design of built gardens that support the theory of remembrn nce therapy. Simply stated, remembrance therapy is based on the theory lriat each stage of Alzheimer s diseast--mild, moderate, and severe-ixs associated with a correspondib-g emotional stage of normal human development-adult, child, and infant. Thus, the author describes built ga rden types that are designed to respond to the emotional equivalent of each corresponding stage of normal human development. This paper concludes with a brief discussion and inquiry into the role of post-occupancy evaluation, research, and data gathering. This is done in an attempt to validate or refine remembrance therapy as a landscape planning awd design method for Alzheimer's Facilities.