[100-Year-Old Brain Health⑤] "Feeling Nature While Tending a Garden"... Changing Dementia Care Facilities

Waiting in Line for Admission at Namyangju Happy Tree Nursing Home
"Designed to Let You Feel the Healing Power of Nature"
Also Aiming to Create a 'Care Farm' in Collaboration with the Local Community

On the 12th, grandmother Ihwa-sook is picking Korean melons, cucumbers, and tomatoes in the vegetable garden at Happy Tree Nursing Home in Namyangju-si, Gyeonggi-do.

"Father, would you like to eat that watermelon today? It's too small, so wouldn't it be better to let it grow a bit more?" "Elder, some peppers are spicy. If you want to eat them for lunch, pick the non-spicy ones."

On the morning of the 12th, after the heavy rain in the Seoul metropolitan area had subsided, seniors from the daytime care center at Happy Tree Nursing Home in Pyeongnae-dong, Namyangju-si, Gyeonggi Province, went out with caregivers to pick vegetables in the nursing home's garden vegetable patch. Despite the bad weather, lettuce, malva, young radish greens, young napa cabbage, as well as peppers, eggplants, green onions, and cucumbers had grown rapidly over the past few days. As Grandma Kim found ripe yellow chamoe melons one after another among the lush green leaves, Grandpa Park, standing a few steps away, hesitated whether to pick a watermelon no bigger than a fist. Grandma Choi, who moves with the help of a walker, silently picked eggplants and green peppers at the edge of the vegetable patch and diligently placed them in a basket. Director Jang Gongja proudly showed the ecological vegetable paddy she had created in just over one pyeong (about 3.3 square meters), saying, "To see if organic farming is possible here, I brought seedling trays all the way from Sangju, Gyeongbuk, planted them, and even added loaches and apple snails."

This nursing home, located on the 10th floor of a commercial building in a residential area lined with apartments and convenience facilities, is well-known among caregivers of dementia patients, with a waiting list for admission thanks to its open surroundings and spacious terrace garden. The nursing home's communal living spaces and rooms have large windows overlooking the foothills of Cheonmasan Mountain, and the garden connected outside is even larger than the indoor space, so there is no feeling of confinement. In addition to play therapy and art therapy, the outdoor space is designed so that seniors can take walks during the day to get sunlight and engage in hobbies by tending plants or crops. Seniors with mild dementia or those with cognitive support grades cultivate crops with their own hands, taste the harvested fruits, and even make pancakes with freshly picked pumpkins or chives.

Most of the nursing home residents adjacent to the daytime care center suffer from dementia along with age-related diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, cerebral infarction, and Parkinson's disease. They require caregivers' assistance when moving, as it is difficult for them to move independently. That afternoon, silver gymnastics for the nursing home seniors was held in the shaded garden. When the singing instructor, dressed in a sparkling red performance outfit and equipped with a wireless microphone, began rhythmically singing old songs like "Seommaeul Seonsaengnim" and "Gudseora Geumsuna," about thirty seniors followed along, shaking their hands, arms, and shoulders, and patting their chests and stomachs. Grandma Jeon, sitting in a wheelchair wearing a floral blouse and a hat, boosted the mood by singing loudly rather than just exercising.

About ten years ago, Director Jang operated a nursing home on the 6th floor of the same building, but when the top floor of about 2,300 square meters (approximately 700 pyeong) came up for sale, she quickly purchased it. She wanted to create an environment where seniors could live in a more spacious and comfortable space. After visiting dementia care facilities in Nordic countries such as Norway and Sweden several years ago, she developed a goal to build a "care farm" in a wider natural suburban area, including residential welfare facilities (nursing homes), medical welfare facilities (care homes), leisure welfare facilities (senior centers), and gardens, vegetable patches, cafes, and restaurants that families and outsiders could also use. She has already purchased a large nearby site of about 23,000 square meters (approximately 7,000 pyeong).

Director Jang said, "Although our nursing home is designed to maximize the therapeutic effects of green nature, it inevitably remains a space isolated from the outside world. If we create an environment where families can visit anytime, local residents can drop by occasionally, and seniors from other regions can interact, it will minimize the caregiving burden on families while allowing seniors to live the rest of their lives with more dignity."