Centre for Policy on Ageing



The Eden Alternative — findings after 1 year of implementation
Author(s)	Mary Thoesen Coleman, Stephen Looney, James O'Brien
Journal title	Journals of Gerontology: Series A, Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, vol 57A, no 7, July 2002
Pages	pp M422-M427
Keywords	Nursing homes ; Quality of life ; Gardening ; Pet keeping ; Children ; Longitudinal surveys ; United States of America.
Annotation	The Eden Alternative (EA) systematically introduces pets, plants and children to nursing home residents to improve their quality of life. This study examines the effects of the EA in two nursing homes. The study site began implementing the EA in November 1998, while a control site continued traditional care. Patient-level data from the Minimum Data Set (MDS) Version 2.0 and aggregate data based on staff reports were used to compare the residents at the two sites. The findings from the study indicate no beneficial effects of the EA in terms of cognition, functional status, survival, infection rate, or cost of care after one year. However, qualitative observations of the Eden site indicated that the change was positive for many staff as well as residents, suggesting that it may take longer than a year to demonstrate improvements attributable to the EA. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-020904208 A
Classmark	LHB: F:59: HSG: HVT: SBC: 3J: 7T
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing

...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.