DALLAS - For most people, a word-association game starting with "hospital" would yield few positive adjectives.

Bland. Drab. Depressing. Institutional.

And studies have found that these aesthetic unpleasantries can affect patients' health.

Some research now shows that decorating hospitals with specific types of artwork can speed up a patient's healing process, while gloomy walls or the wrong kind of art can cause physical distress.

"It's the whole emotional and perceptual context you are in," says Upali Nanda, vice president for American Art Resources, a health care art-consulting firm in Houston. "When you're in a hospital, it's high stress. When we are high stress, we go back to our primal need to be soothed."

Nanda says scientific studies show that the right art can help some patients. Vivid paintings of landscapes, friendly faces and familiar objects can lower blood pressure and heart rate, while abstract pictures can have the opposite effect.

Nanda and two professors did a study at Houston's St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital using two types of art. In the first group were images including green landscapes, water scenes, cultural artifacts and emotionally expressive pictures of people. The second contained abstract pieces. When asked which they preferred, most patients chose images from the first group. Nanda says one theory is that abstract art allows patients to project their own anxieties onto the image.

Healthcare Art Consulting, a Dallas firm that advises medical companies on how to use art, refers to these scientific findings while working with clients.

"Clinical and academic research in the past 10 years has been really putting a strong influence on the healing effects of health care facilities," says Jerry Joyner, chief executive officer of the company.

The company helped refurbish the Joint Unit at Baylor Medical Center in Irving, Texas. The hallways, which previously were dull and outdated, now are lined with paintings of trees, flowers and fields. Patients trying to regain mobility after hip and knee surgeries are met with motivational pictures every 25 feet to keep them energized. These distance markers, adorned with inspirational quotes and pictures of plants, replaced plain pieces of tape that were used before the art was installed.

"Before it just looked like an old hospital," says Baylor's chief nursing officer, Brenda Blain. "Now it's calming, and it's not a regular hospital environment."

She says they were careful to stay away from art that depicted a certain age or gender as active. She instead offered suggestions that would apply to a more diverse group, including a picture of a golf course that reads, "Determination: Without challenge there is no achievement."

"We get athletes, but we get grandma and grandpa, too," says Grant Farrimond, Baylor's director of marketing and public relations. "We don't want to be an art museum, but we do want the art to inspire and soothe."