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'Edenization' a tonic for young and old
Nursing home residents 'hooked on living'
January 27, 1997
Web posted at: 11:45 p.m. ESTFrom Correspondent John Zarrella
MIAMI (CNN) -- If you closed your eyes in the hallway of the Perdue Medical Center, the chirping and warbling of birds might make you think you were in a tropical rain forest.
Perdue is one of scores of medical centers and nursing homes around the country to adopt a novel approach to patient care. It comes from a doctor who says the answer to the health-care problems of young and old lies not in a pill bottle, but in what he calls "Edenization."
Perdue Medical Center has four cats, fifty parakeets and an assortment of finches, love birds and canaries. The idea is to humanize the facility by bringing in plants, birds and animals.
The idea came from Dr. William Thomas, a Harvard-educated physician who fashions himself the Johnny Appleseed of "Edenization".
"I've seen them come alive and sparkle again, and I've seen their faces light up... There is no way you can get that out of a pill bottle," he says.
Nursing home residents 'hooked on living'
Thomas says that after two years, the death rate dropped 25 percent at the first nursing home where he introduced the concept.
"People were living longer," he says. "...they had a reason to live. They had gotten hooked on living again."
More than 100 facilities nationwide are using the idea, and health care workers say that, while pets and plants and children are not a cure-all, they are proving to be a tremendous stimulant. Even for the most difficult cases.
Marisabel Auer's son was hit by a car a year ago. He's been comatose since.
"The first day the bird was here ... he opened his eyes wide open," she says.
Officials at Perdue say they are going to expand the plan and add a dog or two. They say the center should not be a place that is sterile and dull, but one that is full of life.
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