Effects of Forest Therapy Program on Stress and Cognitive Function in Older Adults: Focusing on Salivary Cortisol and Cognitive Screening Test

Status

Active, not recruiting

Phases

Unknown

Study type

Interventional

Source

CRIS

Registry ID

KCT0011753

Enrollment

120

Registered

2026-03-20

Start date

2026-03-30

Completion date

Unknown

Last updated

2026-03-23

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

None listed

Interventions

Behavioral : The experimental group receives a community-based forest therapy program (6080 Village Forest Friends) once per week for 8 weeks (8 sessions total, 120 minutes per session). Each session

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

All

Inclusion criteria

Inclusion criteria: 1.Adults aged 55 years or older 2.Currently enrolled or scheduled to enroll in the community-based forest therapy program (6080 Village Forest Friends) (experimental group), or community-dwelling adults of the same age range who do not participate in the program (control group) 3.Willing and able to provide saliva samples, gargle solution samples, complete the cognitive function test (MMSE-K), and answer questionnaires 4.Agreeable to the secondary use of anonymized data and residual biological specimens for future research 5.Provided written informed consent for both the study participation consent form and the human-derived materials research consent form

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion criteria: 1. Use of antibiotics (oral or injectable) within the past 1 week 2. Participation in another clinical study within the past 1 month 3. Currently taking systemic corticosteroid medications (may interfere with salivary cortisol measurement) 4. Presence of acute oral infection 5. Diagnosed with dementia 6. Deemed ineligible for study participation by the investigator

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame
Change in salivary cortisol concentration Salivary cortisol levels (nmol/L) measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) as a physiological biomarker of stress. The primary outcome is the change in salivary cortisol concentration from baseline to post-intervention.	—

Secondary

Measure	Time frame
Change in cognitive function score (MMSE-K) Cognitive function assessed using the Mini-Mental State Examination-Korean version (MMSE-K). The outcome is the change in total score from baseline to post-intervention.	—

Countries

Korea, Republic of

Contacts

Public ContactMu Yeol Cho

Apple Tree Medical Foundation

whanduf@appleden.com+82-70-4601-5479

Outcome results