Forest and health

The current emphasis of Western medicine is on procedures that very often encourage the passivity of patients. Health insurance funds are incurring ever higher costs, which result directly or indirectly from this passivity. Of course, there is a mutual reinforcement of these factors and alternative approaches hardly get a look-in in this closed cycle.

And this although knowledge of the benefits of the activating approach in maintaining individual health is nothing new. And it is here that specific therapies in the Healing Forest make an invaluable contribution. At present, such methods are seriously neglected in German research funding. Forests have beneficial effects for many medical indications.

Macroclimate, terrain structure and tree population are major factors for patients – a few examples.

Macroclimate:

• dermatological indications
• respiratory tract disorders
• susceptibility to infection
• mental illness
• multiple morbidities with these diseases

Varying terrain:

• disorders of the musculoskeletal system
• cardiovascular diseases
• neurological diseases
• geriatric diseases
• multiple morbidities with these diseases

 Tree population:

• allergic disorders
• respiratory tract disorders