Therapy animals, often just ordinary animals with owners willing and able to provide extra time, are specially chosen to visit nursing homes, senior centers, day care centers, hospitals, prisons, and children’s homes to bring physical and emotional comfort to people. The animals should ideally be sociable, gentle, friendly, unafraid, and capable of getting along with anyone.
As many scientists and doctors believe, the mind-body connection is extremely closely related. Patients who feel isolated and alone are more likely to give up on life. Conversely, sick people recover faster if they are happy and comfortable. This is where therapy animals come in. Therapy animals bring multiple advantages for children, the elderly, those suffering from AIDs or cancer, and the mentally ill. These advantages range from the physical to the emotional.
Physical Effects of Therapy Animals
Therapy animals have been known to:
- Lower blood pressure
- Lower cholesterol
- Relax respiratory patterns
- Increase physical motivation
- Decrease pain episodes
- Encourage speech
- Make patients more receptive to medical treatment and nourishment
- Increase patient’s will to live
Emotional Effects of Therapy Animals
The emotional effects that therapy animals bring to their patients are even more wide-ranging and important. Therapy animals are proven to reduce stress, loneliness, grief, fear, and pain. They allow patients to focus their attention on something outside of themselves—an especially important part of therapy for the mentally ill, who can have difficulty thinking or talking about nothing but their own problems. The animals provide a source of entertainment in otherwise drab and impersonal places, and allow for the patients to interact socially in ways they might not have before. For those in counseling, the animals open an emotionally safe avenue of communication between the patient and the therapist.
Therapy animals accept humans for who they are, which consequently increases confidence and self-esteem. For those who have been physically or sexually abused, the animals allow them to learn appropriate, safe, non-threatening touch. For elderly and ill patients, the animals serve to spark old memories, orient people back to reality, and increase their sense of responsibility toward another life. This, in turn, gives people a reason to live. All in all, therapy animals activate many patients’ nurturing sides and give them a focus outside of their particular problems.
Therapy animals positively affect people of all ages. The animals bring a host of emotional and physical benefits to those in hospitals, nursing homes, and other places. Therapy animals are reputed to save many lives, and provide love and kindness to those in life’s final hours.
References:
 |
