Designing for Parkinson’s: An award winning garden

A garden to support people living with Parkinson’s disease has recently won the BBC / RHS People Choice Award in the UK. 

The designer, Arit Anderson has a sister with Parkinson’s disease. She worked with Parkinson’s UK and gardeners living with Parkinson’s to bring the garden to life.

The space is located outside the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, a Parkinson’s Centre of Excellence in England. As people enter the garden, they’re greeted with raised colourful flower beds, to energise and lift the mood. The path then leads into woodlands, providing calm places to rest under a wooden archway. As insomnia is one of over 40 symptoms, night lights pave the way for visitors after dark.

Practical inclusions include a meandering handrail, made of Koi wood that doubles as a water feature. The running water acts as an audible cue for those that have frozen in their tracks, another common symptom of the disease.

The curved, York stone footpath is 1.4m wide to accommodate a wide gait and wheelchairs. 

As the second most common neurological disease after dementia, Parkinson’s causes brain nerve cells to stop producing enough dopamine, leading to symptoms like tremors, pain, and anxiety. In the UK, someone is diagnosed every 20 minutes, while in Australia, 50 people are diagnosed each day.

Read more about the English garden from the RHS Chelsea Garden Show.