Pet therapy and how pets help us with our own health

Written by: Marcelo Martins from Brazil

Email: itsmarcelomartins@gmail.com

Since ancient civilizations to the present day, our best buddies always have been on our side and, just like the roses from a large garden, they enchanted us with the more pure, delicate and faithful side of a living being. Studies indicate that twelve thousand years ago dogs were the first animals to be domesticated, becoming man’s best friends. After all this time, animals have gained an essential role in our lives and it’s impossible, nowadays, imagine a world without them.

No wonder that after a tiring day, nothing is better than getting home and find your best friend waiting for you at the front door, isn’t right? It’s a fact that our pets make us emotionally stable being a cheerful buddy, full of energy and affection. In that way, they bring us a lot of love into our lives, changing it for the best.

For those reasons, pets can help in the treatment of elderly and children who are hospitalized, and in some cases their presence is considered essential, especially for those who are suffering with a chronic or painful disease.

With that in mind, several institutions started to invest in pet therapy, a treatment for different kinds of diseases that improves the well-being and the emotional, physical, social and cognitive health.

It’s known that people with more complicated diseases that are experiencing repercussions of medical treatments, are trapped in the monotony of asylums and white walls of hospitals, which makes the treatment of these patients even more difficult.

Along these lines, hospitals can be an overwhelming and stressful place for anyone, and pet therapy have the ability to distract and taking them temporarily out of the clinical environment, becoming to be a connection between the treatment and the patient, making all the process easier. Suzanne Madden helps the Delta Society group, an institution that works with therapy dogs across society, and says that ”I couldn't count the number of times over the years I've been visiting that parents have said to me 'that's the first time he's smiled, that's the first time she's laughed, I never thought that I would see my child smile or laugh again after the medical treatment’.

It is evident that there is emotional improvement that pets brings to the people who receive them, we can also see a big improvement in the physical health of patients that use pet therapy.

Research shows that the interaction with pets helps with pain management, stimulates the senses, has a calming effect on patients, and brings joy and fun to the environment. According to the Children’s Hospital Colorado, a growing body of evidence demonstrates that animal-assisted therapy can help patients cope with and heal from health problems, and shows that a friendly pet has benefits including stabilizing blood pressure, diminishing pain, reducing anxiety and even encouraging communication.

But the benefits of pet therapy don’t stop there! You can ask yourself: “but it wouldn’t be great if hospitalized people were able to go to their houses faster than expected?”, and the answer to that question is “YES!”, that’s possible too!

According to a research made in the John Hunter Hospital with pets of the not-for-profit group Delta Society, it has found that after the introduction of therapy dogs was found to help reduce the recovery times of seriously ill patients by ‘up to 30%’. With that in mind, not only do people stay good with their own mental and physical health, but also minimize their time in the hospital and soon they can return to the comfort of their homes.

Fortunately, this is an initiative that has been growing a lot in the past few years around the world, not just in hospitals and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) adhering to this type of therapy and training dogs and cats for this type of activity — such as the Children’s Hospital Colorado and Nationwide Children’s, but also ordinary people who decides to train their pets for this purpose, like Lyndsey Uglow, who decided to do that after hers nine-year-old son, Ollie, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia. “In 2012, I came across the perfect way to do it. I spotted a chap fundraising for the charity Pets As Therapy, and as we chatted, he explained that they organised volunteer pets to go into hospitals and care homes. 'I have two lovely dogs at home,' I thought. 'I could do that’.”, she says.

Pet therapy still needs more research to know for sure what are all the benefits of this type of therapy, but it’s clear that it has already shown itself as a great ally of medicine, going beyond the pharmacological treatments and providing great relief from stress and anxiety in patients and being useful as a stimulus for interaction, what reduces the pain and the monotony of staying in the hospital.

In addition to benefiting from this therapy, this is a great reason to adopt a pet and have such pleasant company at home after all.