By Healthcare Facilities Today

Merwick Care and Rehabilitation Center, Plainsboro, N.J., won Vendome Healthcare Media’s inaugural Landscape Architecture Competition, in the senior living  therapy and landscape design category for its outdoor garden complete with real-world obstacles.

Merwick, a Windsor Healthcare Community, designed a Gold-winning therapy garden that combines landscape beauty with mental inspiration while providing the environmental challenges that will help its residents train for real life, according to an article on the Long-term Living Magazine website.

"It’s a vibrant 'rehab confidence course' of sorts—a multipart garden that snakes among all the other buildings on the campus and is viewable from many windows (including the lounge areas and the gym), while offering many subtle therapy challenges," the article said.

Amid the flowers and aesthetic greenery, this garden is paved with the surfaces and obstacles found in the real world, the article said. The garden’s landscape design includes sections of grass, gravel, brick, sand, rubber, bark mulch, asphalt and concrete so residents can gain confidence on various surfaces. One paved area is deliberately curved and graded, allowing residents to practice maneuvering their legs, walkers or wheelchairs along sloped concrete pavement and over concrete curbs.

Read the article.