By the time you read this we will have just started our therapeutic horticulture programming for the fall. This semester we will be working with three groups of UF students with stress, anxiety, loneliness, and/or depression, individuals with Parkinson’s and their care partners, young adults with developmental disabilities, patients from the Florida Recovery Center, and our therapeutic horticulture alumni group. It’s going to be a busy fall! We’ve got lots of great activities planned and look forward to working with lots of wonderful people.
I wanted to circle back to a research study that I wrote about in an earlier newsletter. It was a study we did in partnership with Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at UF. As a refresher, we conducted a pilot study on adults with chronic low back pain (LBP) to see if gardening activities might have a beneficial effect. This was a two-part study with a mixed methods design; a cross-sectional survey group and a pilot experimental group. At the time of my previous writing, we had not yet known the results.
The cross-sectional survey component comprised a total of 170 patients and its aim was to determine which patients, who were receiving care for chronic LBP, were interested in TH to help manage their pain. Patients were invited to participate in the survey during their clinic visits at the UF Health Comprehensive Spine Center. The results from this first part of the study revealed that 82% of patients surveyed had not previously heard of therapeutic horticulture and 68% were interested in learning more about it. Those patients who were interested agreed that therapeutic horticulture could improve mood and muscle strength, increase overall movement, and decrease stress level, among other benefits (Sharififar et al., 2024).
The second part of the study, the pilot experimental component, included nine patients and aimed to quantify changes in LBP, functional tasks, and anxiety upon completion of a therapeutic horticulture session. Of these nine participants, 44% reported using pain medication to manage their low back pain and 66% believed gardening could provide pain relief. Study participants engaged in a series of planting and propagation activities involving a variety of edible plants both in Wilmot Botanical Gardens and the greenhouse. In partnership with the PM&R physicians, the therapeutic horticulture staff created an activity protocol designed to encourage movement through reaching, bending, squatting, pushing, and pulling in a way which might be beneficial in helping reduce pain.
Immediately following the session, improvements were observed in spine flexion and spine rotation to the left. Additionally, participants reported lower stress levels. All participants believed that gardening could improve overall health and spine motion while reducing low back pain (Sharififar et al., 2024).
This study has been published in Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine and presented at three conferences with two more upcoming. It is our hope that this will lead to additional, larger studies. These future studies could explore dose response approaches (single, multiple, or long-term sessions) as well as different therapeutic horticulture activity types. Exploring additional demographic variables such as participant geographic locations (rural, suburban, urban), LBP history, psychological status, and gardening history could reveal valuable information about the use of therapeutic horticulture as a viable supplemental intervention for LBP.
We really enjoyed collaborating with the PM&R team and hope to find funding to continue studies in this important area of patient health and wellness.
Happy Fall!
Sharififar, S., Sein, M., Diehl, E., Tham, S. Y., Nixon, R. M., Sheppard, C., Bolling, J., Majid, M., Apfelbaum, C., & Vincent, H. K. (2024). Pilot Study on therapeutic horticulture for chronic low back pain: A mixed methods study. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, 30(4), 10–17.
Elizabeth “Leah” Diehl, RLA, HTM
Lecturer, Dept. of Environmental Horticulture, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences
Director of Therapeutic Horticulture, Wilmot Botanical Gardens, College of Medicine