The purpose of this research was to observe the relationships between sociality of the demented elders and horticultural activities of group therapy. The observation paper written by social worker were used for examining the interpersonal relations and communication skills indicating sociality. The important observation results were as follows. First, interpersonal relations and communicative ability among the demented elders were generally improved by horticultural activities of group therapy. Second, horticultural activities of group therapy was especially effective in the demented group of the buddy system. The buddy system meant that each group was consisted of a pair of the same sex or the different sex on the therapeutic horticultural activities. Third, in particular, the groups composed of the different sex seemed to have more effective influence on human relationships and communication than those of the same sex. In conclusion, horticultural therapy could improve their sociality of its participants. Especially, therapeutic horticultural activities of buddy system composed of different gender seemed to have the most effect on the adaptive behavior and communicative ability among the elderly dementia.

Horticultural activity is the one of the most effective recreations due to plenty of advantages. To most of the elderly generation, for instance, it is the familiar activity as well as productive activity, leading to satisfaction by providing an environment for social interaction. In addition, it has been shown that positive results such as memory restoration and emotional stabilization come from it. The purpose of this study was the assessment of horticultural activity as a recreation for the solitude elderly female by investigating the level of isolation and satisfaction of the life. Eight women between 65 and 75 year old were investigated every once a week from March, 18, to October, 28, 2003. Data was collected from UCLA solitude level, the aged life satisfaction, and horticultural activity evaluation and statistically analyzed by SPSS 10.0 and paired t-test was used. As a result, the solitude level was decreased from 52 to 45 with the significance at 0.035(<α=0.05) and the satisfaction level was increased from 32 to 38 with the significance at 0.022(<α=0.05).