Getting Outdoors is Therapeutic

Evidence is mounting that time spent outdoors, getting into nature, can have the same therapeutic benefits as expensive drugs or counselling.

Watch Tom’s video where he explains that with outdoor access “you don’t feel like your dying, you feel like you’re still living”‘.

Lots of people tell Views from the Chair that their ability to enjoy nature in an indoor/outdoor wheelchair is important to their health and wellbeing. But wheelchair funders often dismiss outdoor recreation as an unnecessary luxury. Now science is proving that getting into nature can be vital for good health.

Kaiser Permanente is an integrated managed care consortium in the US, always looking for more cost-effective alternatives that deliver better outcomes. After reviewing the latest evidence about outdoor therapies, Vice President of Total Health Partnerships, Tyler Norris, summed it up as follows:

“If we could package the outdoors and call it a pharmaceutical, it would be sold widely.”

For people with full mobility the implication is to offer discounts or give subsidies for getting out into nature. For people who rely on powered wheelchairs to get around, the implication is that higher costs of quality indoor/outdoor powerchairs may well be justified by a long term therapeutic value as a means to get outdoors and get into life.

Click here to find out more.

Would you participate in a study about your experiences of indoor-outdoor accessibility?

Are you deprived of the opportunity to pursue meaningful occupations because you’re trapped indoors? Have you come out the other side thanks to improved indoor-outdoor mobility? If so, we’d encourage you to register your interest here to participate in a further case study to support this Views from the Chair initiative.