THE ROLE OF ACOUSTIC DESIGN IN COMFORT, HEALTH AND WELLBEING

摘要

It will come as no surprise to acousticians that acoustics has a key role to play in the comfort of people. There is also increasing evidence that acoustics also is intimately linked to the healing process and that getting acoustic conditions right will result in a shorter hospital stay. A patient's stay in hospital is often characterised by long periods where there is very little to do and it would be reasonable to surmise that in this situation, patients are more aware of their environment than would be the case in normal life where there are many more distractions. Whilst the question of what is acceptable is important, we should move from looking at the negative aspects of 'noise' and be investigating the beneficial properties of 'sound'. Music Therapy has been shown to have a demonstrable physiological benefit but the understanding of how we can control more random sounds to benefit the patient seems to be lacking. From the patient's perspective the key factors are sound, noise and privacy, which are all controllable to some degree. This paper sets out a review of some of the issues and presents some measurements of these parameters taken in UK hospitals.