Page 15 - Mainstreamer e-Magazine Volume 1, Issue 3 - August 2023

IMPROVING QUALITY OF LIFE
Inclusive Access to Therapeutic Sensory Stimulation Garden

Hazreena
Hussein

sensory garden is designed to stimulate the you find that once the basic needs are met, you
senses. Stimulation comes from plants and realise you have needs superceding the basic. The
g
A arden features that engage one’s senses same applies to senses; beyond the five, there
of sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing. These are higher-quotient senses: space, emotion, and
five senses can yield therapeutic experiences for spirituality.
various people with different needs. This garden is TSSG has the qualities to stimulate all eight
favourable and beneficial for both generations of senses. In a TSSG, plants of various heights, forms,
children and adults, especially those with sensory colours, and textures reach out to the open
processing disorders, including autism and other skies and produce visuals, sounds, smells, and
physical disabilities. movements that differ between light and shade.

As described above, the original idea for When designing a TSSG, special qualities from
a sensory garden was taken a step further to various plants must be carefully chosen to achieve
extrapolate a broader and deeper meaning of the the desired effects and create an ambience that is
word ‘sensory’. ‘Sensory’ was meant to extend the sometimes cosy and personal but also open out to
five bodily senses of sight, smell, taste, hearing, give a sense of space and boundlessness.
and touch to envelop the spatial, emotional, and
spiritual senses.
The author and Dato’ Dr. Zaliha Omar, a
consultant rehabilitation physician, developed
the concept of a garden to stimulate more than
the five senses. TSSG is a term coined for an
experimental garden built at UMMC, Kuala Lumpur.
It was designed to be therapeutic by stimulating
the senses, impacting the health, wellness, and
rehabilitation of UMMC patients during their
sojourns in the garden. Aside from the basic five
senses, stimulation of the spatial, emotional, and
spiritual senses will undoubtedly accelerate the
therapeutic, rehabilitative process. Once the TSSG
was set up, this therapeutic effect was confirmed
by UMMC rehabilitation physicians and therapists The 1200 sq.m. TSSG Oasis is located on the rooftop of
during individual or group activities at the garden. the 6th floor, Menara Selatan, UMMC. The garden had
The average person is well acquainted with a soft launch on 28 October 2014 by Professor Dr Ikram
Shah Ismail, the Director of UMMC. (Photo by Hazreena
the five basic senses. However, when it comes Hussein)
to feelings and sensations stimulated by space,
emotions, and spirituality, not everyone can readily The experimental TSSG has been in use and
feel and evoke these three suprasenses. These proved useful with encouraging results for
senses are more advanced than the standard recreational activities of patients, including
ones. Comparing senses to basic human needs, consultation and rehabilitation with a wide range

Vol. 01, Issue 3 | August 2022 14