- Calming presence. We know that petting dogs consistently lowers our blood pressure and calms our heart rates. If a person is angry, afraid or distressed, a therapy dog can be the best medicine.
- Pain relief. Stroking dogs has been shown to release endorphins that have the potential to block pain!
- Morale booster. Therapy dogs can help patients let go of their problems for a while, make assisted living facilities feel more like home, and bring back happy memories.
- Eldercare appropriate social stimulation. Therapy dogs and their handlers are attention grabbers in the moment, plus they offer something special to talk about later in the day.
In 2001, the Pet Care Trust Foundation funded a two-year medical study to quantify the physical & psychological effects of introducing animals to patients in the cardiac intensive care facility at the UCLA Medical Center. The Pet Care Trust Board of Trustees understood the significance of quantified medical research for the determination of the value of animals in the health and welfare of human lives. The Trust funded a very small study ($50,000 over two years) compared to most national cardiac research programs, and they made the right choice and they invested well.
At the November, 2005, American Heart Association Conference in Dallas, Kathie Cole, a nurse from UCLA Medical Center and the study leader, announced the findings from the research data collection and medical assessment. The UCLA study showed that trained Assistance Therapy dogs, visiting severely ill cardiac patients in intensive care, lowered their stress and anxiety and their heart and lung pressure significantly.
Kathie Cole, RN and her medical colleagues worked with 76 heart failure patients in hospital, conducting several physical and psychological tests. The patients were randomly divided into three groups. Individual patients were either visited by a human volunteer with a trained dog, by a human volunteer, or no visitation. Blood testing and anxiety assessments were performed on each patient in their group, after a visit or no visit period. The significance of this study is that hard data was collected and analyzed on each patient, as opposed to observations only done in previous animals assisted therapy studies. The analysis makes this cardiac study unique, and more significant with regard to the validity animals visiting medical patients.
A psychological scale for anxiety was consistently used for all patients in the study. The group with no visitors remained the same anxiety level, while patient anxiety after a human visitor dropped by 10%, and the anxiety for those visited by the human with the trained dog, dropped by 24%. This is significant.
The blood chemistry testing included the assessment of epinephrine levels, a hormone secretion that increases with stress in humans.
Epinephrine levels in the group with no visitors increased about 7%, the hormone level in the patient group with a human visitor dropped by 2%, but the epinephrine tests for those visited by the human with the trained dog, dropped about 17%. This again, is significant.
The heart pressure and the lung pressure assessment showed similar responses in each of the three groups of patients. The heart pressure increased by 5% with no visitors, increased by 3% after the human visitor, but heart pressure dropped by 10% after the visit of the dog and human. Similarly, the lung pressure increased with no visit and human visit, but declined by 5% with the dog/human visit.
The conclusion from this study in that Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT) has the potential to be an effective adjunctive treatment modality that improves cardiopulmonary pressures, neuroendocrine levels and anxiety in patients hospitalized with heart failure.
Several well trained assistance therapy dogs were used in this study, including well trained volunteer dog owners. These dogs and their owners were all assessed for temperament and suitability as an assistance team, prior to their training. They are volunteers who support humankind in visits to hospitals, nursing homes and other facilities that enrich the lives of others. Kathie Cole, RN, hopes that the study, funded by the Pet Care Trust Foundation, helps show that pet therapy is a credible addition to patient care, not just a nicety.
This is a significant and impressive medical study with patients suffering from cardiac failure in an intensive care unit at a prestigious university medical school. Because the hard data was scientifically collected and assessed, the study provides documentation for the medical community and medical facilities to recognize and accept animal assisted therapy as being valid. The scientific “proof” that Therapy Dogs, interacting with children, adults and elders in hospitals, in long term care, in schoolrooms and in homes, is a significant benefit for the health of humans, as well as unconditional love within and for our society.
UCLA MEDICAL CENTER DOCUMENTS CANINE THERAPY FOR CARDIAC PATIENTS (LINK)
New research indicates that hospitals that use such pet therapy sessions aren't barking up the wrong tree.
The novel study, presented Tuesday at an American Heart Association meeting, is one of the first to use scientific measurements to document that therapeutic dogs lower anxiety, stress and heart and lung pressure among heart failure patients.
"You can see it on their face, first you see a smile and then you see the worries of the world roll off their shoulders," said Kathie Cole, a nurse at the University of California Los Angeles Medical Center who led the study.
Leslie Kern, director of cardiac research for the heart institute at Memorial Medical Center in Long Beach, Calif., said such visits help make patients' lives more normal.
"I'm not surprised at all that something that makes people feel good also makes them feel less anxious, has measurable physiological effects," said Dr. Marc Gillinov, a cardiac surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic who was not involved in the study.
Cole and her colleagues studied 76 heart failure patients — average age 57 — who got either a visit from a volunteer, a volunteer plus a dog, or no visit.
The scientists meticulously measured patients' physiological responses before, during and after the visits.
Anxiety as measured by a standard rating scale dropped 24 percent for those visited by the dog and volunteer team, but only by 10 percent for those visited by just a volunteer. The scores for the group with no visit remained the same.
Levels of epinephrine, a hormone the body makes when under stress, dropped about 17 percent in patients visited by a person and a dog, and 2 percent in those visited just by a person. But levels rose about 7 percent in the group that didn't get visitors.
Heart pressure dropped 10 percent after the visit by the volunteer and dog. It increased 3 percent for those visited by a volunteer and 5 percent for those who got no visit. Lung pressure declined 5 percent for those visited by a dog and a volunteer. It rose in the other two groups.
Gillinov said the study was especially impressive because of the hard data it provided.
"It helps to legitimize that the intervention is more than something nice and something extra to do for the patient, that it has physiologic benefit," said Janet Parkosewich, a cardiac nurse at Yale New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Conn. , who attended the study presentation Tuesday.
Cole said she hopes the study, funded by the Pet Care Trust Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes the value of animals in society, helps show that pet therapy is a credible addition to patient care, not just a nicety.
In Dallas, Linda Marler's animal assisted therapy program for the Baylor Healthcare System has grown from one dog in 1985 to 84 dogs today.
"It makes the hospital seem less like a hospital and it lowers people's blood pressure," said Marler, who also works for the Baylor Institute for Rehabilitation.
The dogs used in the study — which ranged from a poodle to a golden retriever to a miniature schnauzer — were carefully screened at UCLA and had to pass a behavior test and checkup by a veterinarian, Cole said. Patients were also asked if they liked dogs and wanted to be part of the study.
Dr. George Dennish, a cardiologist at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, Calif. , where dogs are occasionally used, said patients feel calmer and more satisfied.
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AP Photo: Charles Denson, right, of Shreveport, La., mimicks a sad face made by Bart, a 72-pound speckled Australian Shepherd that was paying him a visit while in the cardiac care unit at Baylor hospital, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2005, in Dallas. A small study showed that visits from therapeutic dogs lowered anxiety, stress and heart and lung pressure among heart failure patients. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
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For bypass patient Danny Smith, being visited by a furry friend was a highlight of his stay at Scripps Memorial.
"It was very relieving because all they want to do was give you love," said Smith, 57, of Oceanside, Calif.
Back at Baylor University Medical Center, Bart, the Australian shepherd, left Denson and padded into another heart patient's room. The predictable smile emerged as 68-year-old John Coleman began reminiscing: "Last dog I had was a Dachshund."
About UCLA's People-Animal Connection (PAC)
UCLA's PAC is an animal-assisted therapy program that brings trained volunteers and their dogs to UCLA hospital patients in order to provide a more humane environment for patients, family and staff and to help in the patient recovery process. Started in 1994 with one canine team, PAC has grown to more than 50 teams that visit more than 40 diverse units of the hospital. The program is supported solely by donations. For more information on how to support the program, contact PAC director Jack Barron at (310) 206-2127 or visit www.uclahealth.org/PAC.
Exploring the Health Benefits of Pet Therapy
Michal Czerwonka for The New York Times
Published: October 5, 2009 New York Times
When Chad, a yellow Labrador retriever, moved in with Claire Vaccaro’s family in Manhattan last spring, he already had an important role. As an autism service dog, he was joining the family to help protect Ms. Vaccaro’s 11-year-old son, Milo — especially in public, where he often had tantrums or tried to run away.
Like many companion animals, whether service dogs or pets, Chad had an immediate effect — the kind of effect that is noticeable but has yet to be fully understood through scientific study. And it went beyond the tether that connects dog and boy in public.
“Within, I would say, a week, I noticed enormous changes,” Ms. Vaccaro said of Milo, whose autism impairs his ability to communicate and form social bonds. “More and more changes have happened over the months as their bond has grown. He’s much calmer. He can concentrate for much longer periods of time. It’s almost like a cloud has lifted.”
Dr. Melissa A. Nishawala, clinical director of the autism-spectrum service at the Child Study Center at New York University, said she saw “a prominent and noticeable change” in Milo, even though the dog just sat quietly in the room. “He started to give me narratives in a way he never did,” she said, adding that most of them were about the dog.
The changes have been so profound that Ms. Vaccaro and Dr. Nishawala are starting to talk about weaning Milo from some of his medication.
Anecdotes abound on the benefits of companion animals — whether service and therapy animals or family pets — on human health. But in-depth studies have been rare. Now the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, part of the National Institutes of Health, is embarking on an effort to study whether these animals can have a tangible effect on children’s well-being.
In partnership with the Waltham Center for Pet Nutrition in England (part of the Mars candy and pet food company), the child health institute is seeking proposals that “focus on the interaction between humans and animals.” In particular, it is looking for studies on how these interactions affect typical development and health, and whether they have therapeutic and public-health benefits. It also invites applications for studies that “address why relationships with pets are more important to some children than to others” and that “explore the quality of child-pet relationships, noting variability of human-animal relationships within a family.”
The national institutes’ interest in this type of research goes back at least two decades. Valerie Maholmes, who directs research on child development and behavior at the children’s health institute, said that at a broad-ranging meeting in 1987 on the health benefits of pets, the N.I.H. “concluded that there needed to be much more research,” especially on child development.
Meanwhile, the Waltham Center was expanding its own research to do some small studies about human-animal interaction, said Catherine E. Woteki, global director of scientific affairs for Mars Inc. “We are a pet food company and pet care company,” Dr. Woteki said, “and we’re interested in seeing that that relationship stays a strong one.”
Reviews of the Waltham research program indicated that larger studies over longer terms with appropriate control groups were needed. When Mars became aware of the institutes’ interest in this type of research, a public-private partnership was established, with the company committing more than $2 million. The National Institute of Nursing is also providing money.
Peggy McCardle, chief of the institutes’ child development and behavior branch, said the money from Mars helped jump-start the efforts. Dr. McCardle added that the N.I.H. had established protocols for public-private partnerships and that all proposals got two levels of review before being approved.
People working with animals expect the research to back up their observations. At Children’s Hospital of Orange County in Southern California, for instance, dozens of volunteers regularly take their dogs to visit patients. Children being treated for serious illnesses often have the blues, anxiety or depression. “The dogs brighten them up,” said Emily Grankowski, who oversees the pet therapy program at the hospital.
Some patients who have refused to speak will talk to the dogs, she said, and others who have refused to move often reach for the dogs so they can pet them. So the animals become part of the therapeutic program, especially in the areas involving speech and movement.
“The human-animal bond bypasses the intellect and goes straight to the heart and emotions and nurtures us in ways that nothing else can,” said Karin Winegar, whose book “Saved: Rescued Animals and the Lives They Transform” (Da Capo, 2008) chronicles human-animal interactions. “We’ve seen this from coast to coast, whether it’s disabled children at a riding center in California or a nursing home in Minnesota, where a woman with Alzheimer’s could not recognize her husband but she could recognize their beloved dog.”
Such observations are not new at Autism Service Dogs of America, which brought Milo and Chad together. “Many children with autism can’t relate to a human,” said its director, Pris Taylor, “but they can relate to a dog.”
We hope that this gives you a better understanding of what our dogs are capable of and how they touch the lives of others in such a special way.
In honor of our beloved Maverick McIntyre, Service Dog, Therapy Dog
Highlander German Shepherds have produced both outstanding Therapy and Service Dogs over the years. We are very proud of them all!
