Functional MRI changes affected by horticultural therapy for cerebrovascular disorders

The aim of this paper is to assess whether horticultural therapy (HT) is effective for improvement of daily activity and brain functional activity in brain-damaged patients from a medical point of view. Five patients with cerebrovascular disorders were invited to participate in horticultural therapy for a month in Ishikawa Hospital. The Independence Scale in Activities of Daily Living (ISADL) and the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) were performed before and after a whole series of horticultural therapy program to assess a patient’s activities of daily life and to determine the patient’s cognitive function, respectively. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) under recognition tasks were measured before and after the horticultural therapy. Independency of the daily activities and cognitive function tended to improve after the horticlutural therapy. fMRI examinations showed that the supramarginal gyrus (SMG), the motor area, the supplementary motor area (SMA), the sensory area, the visual area, the middle temporal gyrus, and the frontopolar area were activated after the therapy in most patients.