Feeling blue? Colors can expedite recovery

By Rosiana Ambarwati

JAKARTA (JP): We all know that the colors around us strongly influence our emotions and psychology. They can calm, rejuvenate or excite, encourage or depress.

Emotional values of color depend on time, atmosphere, place, culture, race, age, habits, style and also gender. In the West, people wear black when they are in mourning, but white is traditional in the East. Responses toward a color also vary, with red associated with danger.

Psychoneuromunologists have found proof, through experiments and data, of the relationship between the human body's reaction to light, color, sound and other stimulants. The brain, thoughts and nerve systems can be influenced either positively or negatively by means which stimulate the human senses.

Hospitals have their own designing field. The correct application of colors plays an important role in recoveries, both mental and physical. Research on medical relationships between mind and body indicates a person will recover much faster if not under stress, leading to a shortened hospital stay. Worries over medication, unfamiliar medical treatments and the conventional hospital atmosphere all contribute to a patient's stress.

Hospitals are generally viewed as sterile, clean, smooth and white, which promotes a cold sensation encouraging negative thoughts of fear, paranoia and so on. The modern approach is to "soften" the hospital atmosphere to make it warmer and friendlier. Making things colorful is the exact same way artists use their appeal. Colors, like light, significantly influence health and prosperity. The idea is that each color has a particular electromagnetic wavelength and energy which heals, which must be considered from the beginning. Color can be the essential determinant in the function to promote recovery through its strong visual effect, and encourages a homely atmosphere.

A patient recounted his pleasant experience with the use of color during his stay at a private hospital in Cikarang, West Java.

"My family and I did not feel any concern, we did not even feel as if we were in a hospital. The atmosphere was delightful and comfortable. Especially with the illustrious colors on the interior of the room."

Research proves colors have a psychological effect. The application of color psychology in hospitals may span the correct color combination between green and blue to create a place where long concentration and focus is required, cool colors in the patient's waiting room so that "time" could be ignored, and bright colors for those in recovery. Careful color selection for materials to decorate a hospital is important to create a positive impression for medical staff, patients and visitors.

European and Asian cultures have long known holistic ways of healing. It includes alternating spa, music, nutrition, herbs, vibratory medication and color therapy. Developments create a new perspective on the relationship between stress and illness, also about the influence of positive attitudes for recovery, in this case on the environmental design of the place where the patient is treated.

The physical environment, or more appropriately the interior arrangement, is often the cause of stress and is related to causing the illness so that the environment has the potential to participate in contributing to patients' recovery.

Factors known to elicit psychological reactions in patients are noise-levels, lighting, color, privacy, closeness to nature, communication with doctors and nurses, and accommodation for the patient's family. The holistic approach is a medication method not solely concentrated on body organs because it is known that a patient's mental state greatly influences recovery. Thus this method must be taken into serious consideration.

Hospital administrators must know how to create an environment which will influence the patient's recovery; it reflects the efficiency and quality of the hospital's services.

The director of a private hospital, who has applied the color approach in his hospital, emphasized its importance.

"Variated colors, paintings, proportional placing of plants in rooms, soft music and the presence of a garden in the hospital, creates impressions on the staff, the patients, and visitors that they are at home, even more so as if they are in a hotel," Dr. Roeshadi Suwito Hartono from Bhakti Husada hospital in Cikarang, West Java, said.

"They all feel familiar, cool, comfortable, calm, close to nature, so that they do not feel worried or intimidated. The hospital staff does not feel as if it is working in a hospital and children now are not afraid to come and visit."

The increasing number of new hospitals, especially those which are privately owned, has initiated a progressive trend in interior design for hospitals. It has contributed to a change in the general perception of hospitals, in which they not only give medication services but also seek profit. This creates anticipation of competition between hospitals in supplying quality services to patients, in this case through changing the physical features of a hospital.

The progressive trend is slowly being followed by government hospitals due to the inefficient bureaucratic systems. However, the process of implementation requires huge funding and most of the time the results are unsatisfactory.

The writer, a physician, is a postgraduate student in hospital administration studies at the University of Indonesia.