Fri, 15 Oct 2010

From Grand Hotel to source of strength for stressed contemporaries: taking the waters in Roncegno

By NNA correspondent Cornelie Unger-Leistner

RONCEGNO (NNA) - “This spot is very vibrant – I saw immediately that it would be a wonderful place to take a cure.” When Dr.  Vincenzo Bertozzi entered the old Grand Hotel in Roncegno near Trento for the first time in 1989, all the odds were stacked against the doctor’s vision: the hotel was only open for two months in the year, the thermal spring was no longer bubbling away since an earthquake in Friaul and the magnificent building in Belle Epoque style was starting to deteriorate.

There was little to remind one of the period around the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century when European high society met in Roncegno to take the waters. The attraction was the famous – bottled – thermal water of the Levico spring which was sold as far afield as the Orient and America. Because of its content of copper, iron and arsenic, the water was considered to be particularly effective and, in contrast to other thermal springs which were used to cure particular ailments, the water of the Levico spring had a beneficial effect on the whole organism. At the turn of the century it was being used to fight illnesses against which there was no other cure. Today it is particularly useful in combating disorders such as burnout and weaknesses of the immune system.

And so today Roncegno once again plays host to guests taking the waters from various European countries and the former Grand Hotel has risen to new glory as the “Casa di Salute Raphæl”. Nevertheless, where formerly there was the swish of ladies in long silk gowns today there is the rhythmical sound of flip-flops. Guests also wander in bathrobes along the corridors or sit in the ancient arbours framed by wisteria waiting for their turn in the bath tub with the orange-coloured Levico water or to inhale the thermal water steam.

Dr.  Bertozzi and his colleagues have succeeded in bringing about a special kind of metamorphosis in the last 21 years: the old Grand Hotel has been turned into a modern spa based on anthroposophical medicine and its extension of conventional medical practice. “One day my colleague Guiseppe Leonelli visited me,“ Dr.  Bertozzi recounts. “This colleague had the idea of establishing something like the Swiss anthroposophical Ita Wegmann Clinic in Italy since his wife had received very good treatment there. At the time I was a GP in a small village near Trento.” Dr.  Bertozzi had discovered the Levico spring through a reference in Rudolf Steiner’s course of medical lectures. As early as 1920 Steiner had spoken of the particular healing power of the Levico water for people in the twenty-first century.

That is how the project of the two doctors got started. They convinced the local authorities, who still own the old hotel today, of their plan and resumed the spa with their support. The thermal waters of the Levico spring began to flow to the Casa di Salute. A part of the bath section was newly built, but in all other respects the spa operations moved into the old building, which has retained the charm and expansiveness of the turn of the last century, above all in the south wing. Everything was restored in the original style. “It was a hard battle,” Dr.  Bertozzi remembers, “to prevent the local architects here from completely ruining the building.” The founders of the Casa di Salute had been concerned to keep the particular ambience of the location.

The dining room in the style of the late nineteenth century Gründerzeit now hosts modern vegetarian cuisine with a huge salad bar and in the Art Deco American Bar water and herb teas are served at the counter. Head chef Gianni Aste aims to combine healthy nutrition with the principles of gourmet food. The Casa die Salute even offers cookery courses on that.

Eurythmy therapy is offered in a saloon facing the park and in a room with high arched windows guest can let the view of the picturesque town of Roncegno inspire their art therapy. The fireside lounge is used for the patient choir and for lectures in which any guest with an interest in the subject can also learn about anthroposophy. So what role does Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy play as a whole in the Casa de Salute? Dr.  Bertozzi: “It is our guideline and our life and we are very grateful for it.”

The medical concept of the Casa also includes other traditional European alternative methods of treatment such as Kneipp therapies, oil dispersion baths and herbalism. “Actually well-proven methods, but from our point of view with great modern relevance,” Dr.  Bertozzi emphasises. The doctors in Trento have additionally combined them with the Levico water which flows from the Dolomites around Roncegno in inexhaustible quantities.

At the moment most of the guests come from Italy, something of great benefit for everyone else. Because as a result the genius loci of the Casa die Salute is completely Italian. Hence it is no great surprise that music and singing make up an important part of the culture on offer. Each week there is a concert in the magnificent ballroom. The patient choir sings in Italian and the songs stay with you all the way home. They help to maintain the restorative mood of the south for a little bit longer as you return to the daily grind north of the Alps.

END/nna/ung/cva

Item: 101015-03EN Date: 15 October 2010

Copyright 2010 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See: www.nna-news.org/copyright/

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Dementia: don’t exclude the patient

By NNA correspondent Edith Willer-Kurtz

WITTEN/HERDECKE (NNA) - Greater inclusion of people with dementia in decision-making about their medical treatment and care was one of the demands made at a conference presenting research into dementia at the private Witten/Herdecke University in Germany.

Professor Sabine Bartholomeyczik from Witten/Herdecke said that people with dementia should be allowed to live as normal a life as was possible within the confines of their illness. There was a great desire for normality among dementia patients, Bartholomeyczik added, so that social contacts should be maintained and the relationship with a partner should not be allowed to mutate into a nursing relationship. In this way, autonomy could be preserved for the longest possible time.

Professor Bartholomeyczik was speaking at the annual conference of the German Centre for Neurodegenerative Disorders (DZNE) in the Helmholtz Association. Witten/Herdecke University is one of the bases of the Centre. The Helmholtz Association, with 30,000 employees in 16 research centres, is Germany’s largest scientific organisation and has an annual budget of approximately three billion 3 euros.

Heike von Lützau-Hohlbein from the German Alzheimer Society spoke about the untenable situation regarding the care of people with dementia. She quoted a survey in which most of those working in the field of care for the elderly said they did not want to grow old in the institutions in which they were working. It was important that the DZNE research results filtered right down to the practice base.

Public opinion had to be made more sensitive to the subject of degenerative disorders and the fear of the illness had to be overcome as a first step. Dealing with people with dementia should be discussed as early as kindergarten and in school. Housing associations should familiarise themselves with the topic in order to enable multi-mobility.

The occurrence of degenerative dementia was a challenge and dealing with it a task that affected everyone. The objective had to be to maintain quality of life in dignity.

The researcher said that the lack of insight of those affected by dementia and their unwillingness to accept help was something that one had to learn to deal with. It lay in the nature of degenerative processes that the capacity to judge one’s own abilities deteriorated, leading to misjudgement of what one could do. Aggression arose because no one wanted to give up their independence – it was a basic human need, and the elderly were no different to anyone else in that respect.

Heike von Lützau-Hohlbein also put forward the thought that the absence of long-term planning meant that the development of long-term care strategies was being neglected. The aim had to be to create a social climate with the least possible fear, leading to an improved quality of life for dementia sufferers.

Many of the researchers at the conference voiced their concern about the delay in research results filtering into practical nursing. The wider research findings often took a long time to reach care staff. The development of nursing and of care networks was estimated to be one of the economic growth areas of the future.

The conference took place against the background of a bleak assessment of care for the elderly in Germany. Increasing life expectancy and a falling birth rate meant that in the coming decades there would be too few young people to care for and support too many old people. At the same time nursing was loosing its appeal as a profession. In order to find a way forward the German ministry of education and research set up the DZNE a year ago.

Apart from Witten/Herdecke University, the DZNE is also based in universities and clinics in Munich, Magdeburg, Bonn, Göttingen, Rostock/Greifswald and Tübingen undertaking basic and clinical research. The aim was to improve the public health system through identifying the factors which optimised both the treatment of patients and the flow of information to nursing staff and relatives, Pierluigi Nicotera, academic director of the DZNE, said.

In 2009 the DZNE published 21 scientific papers and more are in the pipeline for 2010. A hotline has been set up which doctors can call to find answers to their questions about Alzheimer’s disease.

END/nna/wil/cva

Item: 101015-01EN Date: 15 October 2010

Copyright 2010 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See: www.nna-news.org/copyright/

More NNA reports at: www.nna-news.org/en/

Herbert Dreiseitl appointed Loeb Fellow at Harvard University

By NNA correspondent Walter Siegfried Hahn

CAMBRIDGE, MA (NNA) - The artist, water researcher and entrepreneur Herbert Dreiseitl has been appointed Loeb Fellow at Harvard University. He took up his appointment at the end of August, thus becoming one of the few non-US citizens to have been accepted on this respected programme.

The Loeb Fellowship was established in 1970 and is based at the Graduate School of Design (GSD). The programme offers ten annual post-professional awards for independent study at Harvard with access to such well-known institutions as Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Business School and M. I. T. Dreiseitl intends to research the history of water and society as well as developing tools to control the risks to water.

A former student at the Ulm Waldorf School in Germany, he found early inspiration at the Institute of Flow Research in Herrischried in Germany.

Early on, in 1979, he established his own company based in Überlingen on Lake Constance which now has offices in Beijing, Portland/Oregon and Singapore. With a staff of 60 he is engaged in landscape and urban planning projects throughout the world, but focussing particularly on water management. Projects range from the design of a square with its well in a Swabian village through the famous Potsdamer Platz (Potsdam Square) in Berlin to designing the whole water management system for the city state of Singapore.

His particular expertise is in combining artistic aspects with environmental planning and implementation with regard to water in an urban setting. His work represents the leading edge in urban hydrology and the treatment of waste and stormwater. The esoteric aspect of his approach is recognised and accepted by his peers because of its visible results.

Herbert Dreiseitl regularly gives lectures and seminars at conferences and symposia such as the World Cities Summit at the end of June in Singapore. His publications include “Waterscapes” and “New Waterscapes”, probably more familiar to a technical readership, but also “Wasser bewegt” (Water Moves) in collaboration with other authors.

Dreiseitl starts his projects by looking at the essential nature of water, introducing wholly new perspectives for many of his colleagues and clients in engineering, architecture, urban planning and government. The purification of water and keeping it clean happen almost like a side-effect of such a respectful attitude to water. The inclusion of the local population in his planning is not only successful from the perspective of sustainable and socially compatible design, it has also aroused great interest as an artistic approach that includes social sculpture.

One of the major tasks facing humanity today is to protect the sources of fresh water, to keep them clean and manage their use and to ensure that there is sufficient clean drinking water. Herbert Dreiseitl’s approach offers good and beautiful solutions to these problems which are also practicable and reproducible and which can therefore be implemented in different places.

The appointment as a Loeb Fellow is an honour which highlights the importance which his work is accorded in North America.

END/nna/wsh/cva

Item: 101015-02EN Date: 15 October 2010

Copyright 2010 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See: www.nna-news.org/copyright/

More NNA reports at: www.nna-news.org/en/