Changing a room's decor can improve patient's health


Health is a "team" effort. Whether we’re talking about an elderly relative or a disabled patient, everybody needs quality care and comfort. Caregivers need to be able to deliver care with ease. But did you know that the care environment is also critical to recovering and living better?

The room the patient lives in - whether at home or in a hospital - is critical to their well-being. What it looks like, what the equipment feels like, how useful the furniture is – all of this contributes to optimal health - especially in long-term care situations with the elderly or disabled.

Think about it: the rooms in your home convey all kinds of emotions: romance, calmness, energy, warmth, contentment, and more. Rooms actually play a fundamental role in your attitude, your appetite, your happiness and your comfort. All of those things add up to a simple medical concept - the patient's environment affects healing!

Whether care is needed in a hospital room or involves a patient living with disabilities at home, it’s important to transform the medical surroundings into a nurturing environment. Here are a few ways you can improve your loved ones’ rooms:

Add Color
Color and texture can be the key to everything. Lifeless rooms will not help a patient feel cheerful and healthy, so make sure colors and textures inspire the emotions most important to health and wellness. Warm colors (red, yellow and orange) reflect positive and cozy feelings. Cooler colors - such as blue and green - are calming, but work best in sun-drenched rooms where they tend to tone down the brightness. Choose colors and textures that either create a soothing background or make an accent wall statement.

Add Light
Light lifts moods. Dim rooms make it hard to see. They can produce feelings of darkness and depression in patients and the elderly … making it difficult to energize the healing process. Add overhead lighting in rooms where there isn’t any. Enhance your basic lighting with table lamps, floor lamps and wall lighting (perhaps a wall sconce to make reading easier in bed) to create a bright, cheerful and comfortable environment.

Use Beautiful and Functional Furniture
When people think about hospital rooms, long-term care facilities, or medical equipment for the home they imagine functional stainless steel furniture with that horrid white plastic ... but it doesn't need to be that way! There's no reason to swap functionality for looks. Hospital beds and furnishings have come a long way. You can now match or enhance the decor of just about any room with fashionable furniture styles and attractive wood finishes.

Völker, one of the key players in the hospital furnishings business, is all about style across the range of their products. Völker offers healthcare beds suited to both hospital rooms and home care with matching bureaus, wardrobes, chairs and tables - ensuring that your room looks like home. These healthcare beds give the elderly and disabled a new lease on life, without sacrificing comfort or cutting-edge healing technologies. The beds also increase mobility, allowing patients to do more for themselves. Every time a patient does something without help, they feel better about what they can do.

Build An Environment That Makes the Patient Happy
Your loved ones’ well-being depends on it. By coordinating color, lighting, room accessories and functional furniture, you can affect the mood of the patient. You can help them feel better about their disability and promote positive thoughts about healing. Positive thoughts can lead to getting better faster!

We know that the environment is a key part of getting better. Those must-have medical items - the bed and technical room furnishings? They perform key medical functions, whether it's providing ease-of-access to caregivers, assisting patients with mobility issues, or performing specific therapeutic functions. But there's no reason they can't be part of the cure for a lackluster room! And as you consider redecorating your "healing room," think wall murals, plants, flower pots, vases and artwork. Remember: functional can also be beautiful.