News & Views:

A Picture Is Worth 1,000 Aspirin
USA Weekend July 27-29, 2001

Soothing images of mountain streams and sunny beaches may offer hope for easing pain in normally sterile hospital environments. Humans respond positively to scenes of nature, a phenomenon known as biophilia. But Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore credits a curtain-like mural that combines a nature scene with sounds of water, wind and bird calls for cutting pain 43% in patients undergoing bronchoscopy, in which tubes are put up the nose and into the lungs. Bedscapes, which wraps around a bed, also is being used in 50-some other hospitals and nursing homes nationwide. How does it work?

"In essence, you are taking your mental focus away from pain and placing it in a pleasant situation," says Katherine Bowman at the University of California at San Francisco Pain Management Center. The item retails for less than $250 from the Glenford, N.Y. company.

Ulrich Presents Bedscapes™ Study Results At Nashville Symposium

Roger Ulrich, PhD, of Texax A&M, the leading edge environmental psychologist who has shown the health impacts of patients' views of biophilic nature scenes have presented the dramatic results of their randomized controlled study at the Healthcare Design Symposium in Nashville.

The presentation is entitled "Cardiology Environments That Heal." For a description of preliminary research results, see Research.

For the Symposium presentation description click here.