Have you ever had to spend any time in hospital as a patient? You may have experienced periods of feeling low, anxious, and stressed. This may be as a result of your illness or injury and because of being away from home. If this sounds like your hospital experience, you aren’t alone. Hospitalised patients often experience a downturn in mental wellbeing. Many experience physical changes too. In order to reduce some of these stressors that patients experience, some hospitals have introduced a variety of therapeutic programs. One program that you are increasingly likely to see on that list is pet therapy. So, if you are wondering whether pet therapy in more UK hospitals would be a good move, we thought we’d share the pros and cons for patients.
The idea of pet therapy is not new. It has rapidly grown in popularity in the United States and Australia. However, for many years it was simply considered to be a “nice” thing for hospital patients to experience. Thanks to increasing research into the topic by clinicians, there has been proven to be a wider range of benefits. Pet therapy does exist in the UK but is currently not widespread across all NHS trusts. However, in 2017 the Royal College of Nursing stated that dogs and other animals should be allowed in UK hospitals to help patients recover.1
What are the benefits of pet therapy to patients?
An article in the American Journal of Critical Care2 showed that when patients had a 12-minute visit from a pet, there was an improvement in heart and lung function, improved blood pressure readings, a reduction in the release of harmful hormones, and a decrease in anxiety. Hospitalised heart failure patients took part in the study. The results showed a positive benefit for the patients that received a visit from a dog compared with those patients who were only visited by a human volunteer or those who were left alone.
The benefits to patients of pet therapy include:
Mental health benefits
Examples include reduced depression, fewer problem behaviours for patients with dementia, less fatigue and tension, reduced confusion, improved self-esteem and greater socialisation.
Physical health benefits
Examples of the physical benefits include lower blood pressure when exposed to stress, lower pain perception, endorphin release to calm the patient and ultimately a reduced need for medication.
What are the dangers of pet therapy for patients?
If patients are allergic to animals, pet therapy cannot be used. Typically cats are not used as they cannot be trained in the same way as dogs, with more likelihood of scratches and bites from cats. Additionally, people are more likely to be allergic to cats than to dogs.
Dogs used for pet therapy purposes and their handlers need to undergo specific training. Ideally they should be certified by a pet training organisation.
There has been a lot of research done on the benefit of having dogs in the hospital, but not much research on the spread of bacteria from having dogs in the hospital rooms. A study done in a Canadian hospital tested dogs’ paws and fur prior to hospital entry and then again after visiting patients. Of the 26 dogs studied, 2 picked up specific bacteria during the visit.3 This highlights that there is a definite need for thorough handwashing by anyone visiting patients prior to visiting and following the visit. When visiting with multiple patients, handwashing between visits is essential.
Hospitals have very distinct protocols in place to ensure that there is minimal transmission of infection. The animals have to be clean, vaccinated, trained, and have a good temperament before being allowed into the hospital. In some situations, such as patients in isolation units or patients in the intensive care unit, pet therapy can only take place with extra measures in place, but can be unsuitable for some.
Examples of successful pet therapy
There are two types of pet therapy, namely animal-assisted therapy and animal-assisted activity. Animal-assisted therapy is specifically for patients with cancer, heart disease, or mental health concerns and needs to be led by a qualified staff member. Animal-assisted activities have a wider scope. They provide comfort and enjoyment rather than trying to achieve specific physical outcomes such as reducing blood pressure. Volunteer handlers typically staff this latter form of pet therapy.
Southampton is one city in the UK offering pet therapy in the city’s hospitals. These hospitals have very rigorous protocols in place. The Royal College of Nursing would like to see these replicated in hospitals throughout the UK.
Organisations such as Pets as Therapy and Therapy Dogs Nationwide offer volunteers with their therapy dogs to assist in a wide range of settings ranging from hospitals, to nursing homes, to schools for children with special needs. Would your dog make a good therapy dog?
Dogs are also appearing in physiotherapy and rehabilitation clinics. Brushing a dog can be a more interesting arm strengthening exercise for a patient than weight training.4 Encouraging patients to walk and do rehabilitative exercises is easier when there is a dog involved.
Is pet therapy worth it?
More and more research is being done on the subject of pet therapy to determine the relative merits. If having a pet therapy session can at a minimum brighten a patient’s day during difficult times, it is absolutely worth it. Results show that pet therapy achieves far more than that, with benefits to patients’ mental and physical health being achieved across all age groups. With so many pressures on the NHS this may be one way of speeding up patient recovery, so we’d love to see more areas of UK health care to go to the dogs. Would you want your local hospital trust to adopt this approach?
References
1. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/therapy-dogs-animals-nurses-let-into-hospitals-help-ill-children-patients-royal-college-of-nursing-a7799471.html
2. Gole, Gawlinski, Steers, Kotlerman. Animal-Assisted Therapy in Patients Hospitalized With Heart Failure. Am J Crit Care. November 2007 vol. 16 no. 6 575-585
3. https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/therapy-dogs-and-hospital-infections/?_r=0 Tara Parker-Pope May 11, 2009
4. Haggard, A. (1985). A patient’s best friend. American Journal of Nursing. 85(12), 1374-1376
