Characterisation of a green microenvironment and to study its impact upon health and well-being in the elderly as a way forward for health tourism.
Our society in Europe is still under prepared for the demographic changing situation of an ageing population which began several decades ago. This is visible in the age structure of the population and is reflected by the fact that the population aged 65 years and over is increasing in every European country. The growth in the elderly population may be explained by increased longevity, but at the same time, we also see an increase in debilitating conditions. However, it is also clear that the elderly are afflicted by challenging health conditions as a direct consequence of being elderly which impact their quality of life (QOL), e.g. living alone, depression, recovery from illness, immobility. This is what we would like to address. Living longer should be a privilege but there has been a collective failure to address social implications and QOL issues, where social care and the way it is funded are already in crisis. Our aim in this project is to couple the need for new societal approaches in addressing this changing demographic with improving the economy of green microenvironment sites, where health tourism and creating new jobs in this sector would in turn fund and provide benefits with respect to the well-being of the elderly. The ultimate outcome, through this pan-European academic and industrial project, will be: a) to derive cross-disciplinary and inter-sectorial knowledge of how to improve physical and mental well-being in the elderly, b) to characterise the environmental geology of Nemi and to correlate the identified features with improvements in health, well-being and recovery, c) to train a new generation of specialists in the sector of recreation and health for the tourism industry, d) the training of specialists in social and therapeutic horticulture (STH) as a way to improve physical and mental health, e) to create a model for health tourism, and f) to produce a business plan with an economic impact analysis.