Lilacs. Roses. Jasmine. Gardenia. Freshly mown grass. Chaparral. Depending on where you grew up, these scents probably conjure up some pretty powerful emotions and memories. In fact, of the five, our olfactory sense is the strongest emotional memory trigger. According to a recent article in the June '09 issue of Organic Gardening, "That's because the part of our brain responsible for basic memory evolved out of the tissue that makes up the olfactory cortex." (For a slightly more detailed explanation, see this article on the psychology of scent, "Whisking up a memory with a whiff.")
For this reason, using plants with fragrant flowers and foliage is an important part of designing the healing garden.* Especially in nursing homes, dementia gardens, and other landscapes for people with memory loss, scent can be very powerful. Consider this story, from Martha M. Tyson's wonderful book The Healing Landscape: Therapeutic Outdoor Environments, about our colleague Vince Healy:
Vince's grandmother was in her nineties. For quite some time she had not recognized Vince and was not really fully aware of what was going on around her. Since it was Easter time, Vince decided to pay her a visit. During his drive there, Vince came upon a roadside stand that advertised lilacs for sale. In southern California, lilacs do not grow well. This stand, however, had great quantities of them, and they were cheap. So Vince brought an enormous number of the lilacs and put them in the back of his van...By the time Vince arrived at the nursing home, the lilacs were looking very sad. When Vince walked into his grandmother's room, she looked at him as always, blankly, and then she looked at the flowers. "They're wilted! Throw them away!" After all this effort Vince was not about to throw them away, so he moved the lilacs closer, right under her nose. She drew in the fragrance with a deep breath and a sigh and said, "Lilacs...." Then she looked up at Vince and said, "Vinnie, how are you?"
Gets me every time. But even with less miraculous results, scents that elderly people remember fondly - "old-fashioned" flowers like lilacs, honeysuckle, gardenia, mock orange, roses - can evoke positive feelings and often facilitate conversations, thus providing something important but often lacking in places like nursing homes: Personal connection. Because our sense of smell often decreases as we age, strongly scented plants have a better chance of triggering a reaction than something subtle. I highly recommend Tyson's book for more information, and Clare Cooper Marcus and Marni Barnes' book Healing Gardens: Therapeutic Benefits and Design Recommendations is also valuable, especially the chapters on nursing home gardens (chapter 8) and Alzheimer's treatment gardens (chapter 9). Several other books have been published on gardens for the elderly, including Jack Carman et al's new book Recreating Neighborhoods for Successful Aging (which I don't have yet). If you know of books that specifically address this issue of scent as a memory trigger in healing gardens, I'll add it to our list!
*One caveat: In some cases, such as with gardens for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, even a good scent may be too overwhelming, and even nauseating. I don't know of any specific research on what to steer clear of - if anyone reading this knows, please pass the information my way and I'll list it on the Therapeutic Landscapes Network's website.
7 comments:
I've studied aromatherapy for awhile, but hadn't run across this information. Good story. I believe that the part of the brain where smell registers most is in the stem brain, the part we share with animals. If that's right, maybe this use of scents bypasses the muddled frontal lobes, and that's why it can work in these ways.
I would imagine that, to prevent nausea from cancer patients, it would be better to use the scents from plants which promote digestion (and are usually a little pungent rather than sharp): lemon balm, mint, catnip, rosemary, and so on. But then as you point out, the sense of smell's an individual thing.
Smells and memory... they are some of the faculties that we believe are the longest to stay with us. Just this morning, I was smelling and Hearing grass being cut which brought me back 30+ years ago to being 125 miles away in Maryland. Yes, it triggers the emotions. Enjoy your blog.
~k
Whenever I breathe in the scent of old roses, I'm 8 years old again in my grandmother's garden. Floral scents really are time machines. Great post.
Aha, I finally figured out how to post a comment! I wrote my master's thesis in landscape architecture on this subject--specifically, on using fragrant plants in gardens for elderly people to help conduct reminiscence therapy. There is a ton of new brain science being done on the links between smells, emotions and memories. It turns out that early, emotional autobiographical memories are strongly related to smells, because of the way the brain evolved. I looked at how reminiscence helps older people come to terms with their lives, historic use of scent in gardens as well as history of therapeutic gardens--it was a lot of fun doing the reading but hard to write! I also interviewed a group of practitioners for their advice and insights on using scent for therapy in gardens. I got different perspectives from landscape architects who design therapeutic gardens, nurses/therapists who work with elderly populations and horticultural therapists who work in all kinds of settings. One of the recurring themes was the need for everyone involved to work together in creating these gardens--not just garden designers and hospital/nursing home administrators, but the therapy staff, families, patients and (not to be forgotten!) the maintenance staff.
I spent two and a half years reading and could have spent lots longer (but I needed to graduate)! You can see the thesis at this link:
http://dspace.uta.edu/bitstream/10106/550/1/umi-uta-1697.pdf
Or if that doesn't work, I'm sending a PDF to the Therapeutic Landscapes Database website.
Thank you, Wendy! What a great resource. I will post your thesis on the References page of the TLD soon.
Lovely post on fragrance! I really mean that, very well done. Wonderful of you to ask about ill people's sensitivity to natural fragrance. This is true for some people with chemical sensitivity or full blown Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, which is usually triggered by a toxic chemical injury. Generally speaking (b/c Multiple Chemical Sensitivity is not a static illness) people with MCS can have a hard time with mints, eucalyptus, pine, cedar, camphor and the like. The neurological and other systemic damage from the initial toxic chemical injury can then make the person sensitive to not only very low levels of toxic chemicals, but also aromatic botanicals.
I know this isn't the topic here, but worth mentioning I think is that people with MCS can also have a hard time with essential oils, mainly b/c the processing usually involves petrochemicals, even when labeled "organic" or "natural." But even some truly organic essential oils such as patchouli, tea tree oil, and even lavender can cause adverse reactions in some people with MCS.
One last point of clarification: MCS is not an allergy, it is a toxicological illness usually triggered by an exposure to toxic chemical(s).
Thanks again for a lovely post.
Thank you, Susie, for this informative comment on what fragrances people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) might be more sensitive to. Very helpful!
Post a Comment