'Gardening therapy helped me recover after brain bleed'

A woman who suffered a life-threatening bleed on the brain has said her recovery would have been "profoundly different" without the gardening therapy offered by a West Yorkshire hospital.

Rose Hickman, 22, had the bleed while working at her family's restaurant. It caused her to lose all feeling and movement down the left side of her body.

She praised the newrehabilitation garden at Chapel Allerton Hospital, which allows patients to improve motor, cognitive and communication skills through gardening.

Rose, from Morley, was left unable to complete day-to-day tasks, such as holding a pen or using a knife and fork, after her injury - but working in the garden allowed her to track her recovery.

She said: "When I first started doing the gardening therapy, I struggled just picking up the bulbs and I struggled holding the shovel right to get the compost in the pot.

"But by the end, by the last week I had in gardening therapy, I could do it all with ease."

The new garden has transformed the outdoor courtyard area which had not been modernised since 1994 and was unsuitable for patients and their families.

It is expected that about 500 people a year will benefit from the garden.

Harriet Garnett, occupational therapist at Chapel Allerton Hospital, said: "It is rehab within real everyday activity.

"The magic is forgetting you are in hospital."

Prof Rory O'Connor, lead clinician for rehabilitation services at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, said that as well as the impact on motor skills, patients would see significant benefits from being outside.

"We know from studies which have been done over very many years that just actually seeing a tree from your hospital window will shorten your length of stay by a day and that's research which has been replicated many times and around the world," he said.

"Every rehabilitation unit in the country should have a space like this."

Rose echoed his call for more outdoor spaces for patients.

"It would be beautiful to see these in lots of hospitals and rehab facilities across the country to help patients feel normal, to have an outside space that's specifically for therapy but not exclusively for therapy," she said.

The garden has been funded by Leeds Hospitals Charity, which received a £200,000 grant from NHS Charities Together.

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