The patients’ interest in beautiful objects and nature outside the window is a sign of recovery. The monotony of hospital wards is as oppressive to the patient’s brain as the monotonous food is to his stomach. The variety of shapes, the shining colors of the objects surrounding the patients, are a real means of restoring them.
When a person goes to a hospital, his mind perceives it as a place where he will be helped to heal. But the patient’s body reacts as if he was trapped, in captivity.
In psychology and psychiatry, the term “sensory deprivation” is used to describe the syndrome that occurs when there is a prolonged absence of signals from the senses.
Sometimes the morale of a patient in a hospital isolation ward is not much different from the morale of a criminal in solitary confinement.
Today, Hospital Architects in India try to avoid uniformity in design when designing hospitals. Hospitals have been undergoing a truly revolutionary transformation over the past couple of decades.
In private clinics, change began early. Private hospitals, competing with each other, must win clients not only by the professionalism of practicing specialists but also by the conditions, all raising the bar.
The progress in the movement from the experimental-punitive approach to the humanistic one is most noticeable when we consider the transformation of psychiatric clinics.
When designing children’s hospitals, Hospital Construction Companies in India actively experiment with color. Sometimes faith in color therapy remains almost the last chance, a desperate attempt to influence the health of young patients and instill hope for recovery in children and their parents.
Light and color
Bright light can damage the retina in newborns, while older people need more intense lighting. Someone perceives red and orange colors in the interior positively, but in people with mental disorders, they can provoke anxiety attacks.
It is no coincidence that the white color of the classic hospital interior is called “sterile” – it was chosen due to the high requirements for hygiene.
White is as functional as possible, since any dirt, any foreign body is noticeable against its background. White textiles withstand high-temperature decontamination.
Over time, cleaning technology has moved to the next level, and scientific research has proven that uniform white interiors cause sensory starvation in patients.
Choosing the right colors and lighting can be compared to a difficult quest since perception and response differ among children and the elderly, people with visual or mental disabilities.
The designer has to please everyone, while not forgetting the functional role of lighting, as well as energy efficiency. There are no simple recipes for designing lighting scenarios and color schemes that will satisfy everyone.
Below are some of the general recommendations given by Hospital Architects in India that you can take into account when choosing colors for your hospital:
- Do not use blue in cardiology departments, as it complicates the diagnosis.
- For the same reason, in maternity wards, yellow should be avoided – it can interfere with the identification of jaundice in newborns
- And in psychiatric and dermatological clinics it is better to abandon the use of “active” colors – orange and red.
- Signs should be included in the overall color scheme, prominently displayed and well lit.
If your hospital is lagging behind in any area, be it the design, architecture, or equipment, we suggest you to turn to Astron Healthcare, one of the Hospital Equipment Companies and Hospital Construction Companies in India.