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Animal assisted therapy essay
Animal assisted therapy essay
A level health psychology
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Health Psychology is a growing field which covers many different areas including how to get healthy, how to stay healthy, and how to better deal with stress and stressful situation. One very interesting topic of Health Psychology is Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT). AAT is a specific type of therapy where the patient is introduced to a highly trained animal, typically dogs. AAT has been found to support mental health and quality of life for patients choosing to undergo therapy with the animal. During a therapy session with the AAT dogs, the handler is present and the patient will groom, pet, or talk to the animal causing them to feel more comfortable in the situation. Current research involving AAT is very specific to age, allowing for the question, …show more content…
how does Animal-Assisted Therapy help all ages in stressful situations. In the Tsai, Friedmann & Thomas (2010) article, the study was preformed to evaluate AAT in its ability to reduce physiological and psychological indicators of stress in children that were hospitalized for their illness in comparison to other alternative interventions. The researchers expected to find that Animal-Assisted therapy would reduce physiological indicators like blood pressure and psychological stress indicators like heightened arousal for the children in their study. To perform their study the researchers used 15 children aged 7 to 17 who suffered from acute or chronic conditions. The patient would have to be admitted to a specific pediatric unit in the hospital that opted to participate in the study. After making sure that both the family of the child and the child were comfortable with going through with the experiment, the proper consent forms were signed and the experiment was conducted. During the experiment AAT was matched against a comparison intervention; completing a puzzle. This was a within-group design so the participants completed both halves of the experiment. The experimenters then used blood pressure, heart rate, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAI-C) and the Child Medical Fear Scale (CMFS) to measure medical fear and state anxiety before and after puzzles and the visits with the AAT dogs. Their study results showed that AAT may lower blood pressure before and during therapy sessions for children who are hospitalized. The flaws of their study were that they did not account for when the children interacted with the dogs, in some cases their blood pressure increased slightly when the dog was introduced to the room simply because they were excited to see the animal. The researchers also stated that they wanted to have a larger sample size so the results could be more accurate. They also did not account for the different illnesses that the children in the study had. This study is important because it shows that AAT can help in stressful situations, in this case being a sick child in a hospital. Another child-related experiment is one performed by Dietz, Davis, & Pennings (2012).
The experimenters performed the study to evaluate whether AAT would be of assistance to children who were going through therapy for sexual abuse. The researchers expected to find that therapy sessions with the dogs would help lower the trauma symptoms in the children. The study included 153 children who had experienced child sexual assault and had been taken to a Child Advocacy Center (CAC). The participants were between the ages 7 and 17. In the experiment, researchers used three groups, a no dog group, a dog with no story group, and a dog with story group. In the no dog group, a dog was available in the lobby but not in the therapy session to act as a control group during 12 therapy sessions. The dog with no story group got to see and interact with the dog outside of the therapy session for 30 minutes, like the no dog group, but in this case the dog joined the therapy session for 10 to 15 minutes. In the dog with story group, the dog was allowed in the group therapy session the whole time. The researchers made scripts for the handlers to a story tell through the perspective of the dog, and they also made questions to be asked after the dog’s speech was over to make an easy break into talking to the children about their experiences. The experimenter used the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children (TSCC) to look at how much trauma the participants had experienced on a clinical scale …show more content…
including anxiety, anger, depression, PTSD, sexual preoccupation, and many more. Results showed that children who participated in the dog with story group had lower levels for anxiety, depression, PTSD, dissociation, and sexual concerns, as compared to the no dog condition that showed no change. Another result from this study showed that both the dog with no story and the dog with story groups decreased from pre to post test in stress levels. The researcher suggests that the flaws of their study were that there was no true control group, a group that did not see any AAT pet. They also saw that the dogs could sometimes be a distraction to the children. This study is another great explanation for why having an AAT animal present in a stressful situation helps lower stress, in this case sexually abused children. Since AAT has shown to lower stress levels in particular situations for children, it needs to be examined on the other side of the spectrum, older adults. Kanamori et al. (2001) performed an experiment to investigate how AAT affects senile dementia patients. The researchers wanted the study to show that AAT could encourage independence and improve the patients’ quality of life. The participants were selected from the adult day care of their local psychological health hospital. There were two groups, a group that received AAT who suffered from Alzheimer’s type dementia (DAT) and vascular dementia (VD), and a group who did not receive any AAT but still suffered from DAT and VD. To evaluate stress levels, the researchers used the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE), endocrinological stress evaluation, or a saliva stress test, and daily interviews with the participant and the family of the participant. Their study found that AAT is effective for reducing psychosocial symptoms for dementia including delusions and hallucinations. They also found that the more AAT sessions that the seniors participated in, the more effective AAT was. The researcher stated that their main flaw was that in the experiment and control group the number of participants with DAT and VD did not match up. This study is important because it shows that AAT can be used on someone other than a child and it still be successful. It is also important because it shows that AAT helped reduce stress in the stressful situation of being in an adult day care program. Lastly, in a study performed by Majić, Gutzmann, Heinz, Lang, & Rapp (2013) researchers investigated the efficacy of AAT on seniors in nursing homes showing signs of depression, aggression, and dementia.
The researcher expected to find that AAT would help lower all of the signs previously stated. To test this hypothesis, they used 65 nursing home residences and randomly assigned them to the treatment as usual group or the treatment as usual combined with AAT group. The experiment lasted a couple of months and consisted of 10 weekly sessions. To test their variables, the researchers compared the participant’s pre and posttest borderlines for depression, aggression, and dementia. Results showed promise in AAT. The researchers stated that AAT may delay progression of neuropsychiatric symptoms like depression and anxiety in demented nursing home residents. The researchers stated that the main problem with their research was that there was no control group so that the researchers could be sure that the change in borderline was due to AAT specifically and not some external factor. This experiment is another example of how AAT is effective in reducing stress levels in a stressful situation, in this case a nursing home.
In the first two articles mentioned, stress levels are examined in children, and in the last two articles, stress levels are examined in older adults. The children in the studies were suffering from chronic or acute illnesses or had experienced sexual abuse and were
pursuing some kind of treatment. The older adults in the studies suffered from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, something that you can not simply cure. All four of these cases are examples of event in life that are extremely high stress, not just for the participants, but their families and the people that they interact with. This shows that no matter where one is in life it is very likely that they will experience stress or a stressful situation. When it comes to experiencing these stressful situations, AAT is shown to help not just children but adults as well.
In addition, Some elderly people have cardiovascular health problems. Cardiovascular problems occur when people get older , peoples heats can’t beat as fast during fiscal activity or stress as when they were younger. Therapy dogs could help “improve cardiovascular health.” (“?”) Service dogs are traind to Perform specific tasks to help mental health patients. People who have taken care of the elderly " have seen elderly with significant dementia who can be aggressive or mean, change their behavior when there is an animal around."
Therefore, prolonged stress included adverse psychological and physical health effects as well as the increased risk of premature death (Denollet, J., et al.
Jones, F, Bright, J, Clow, A (2001). Stress: myth, theory and research. Essex: Pearson Education Limited. p. 12.
A couple of emotional problems have been tested by researchers in 2011. This study was known as the Applied Animal Behaviour Science. This was the first quantitative data made about puppy mill dogs. The research was done on more than 1,100 dogs who had averagely had a new home for about two years. The research showed “The dogs were found to have s...
Most people are familiar with service dogs and have seen them in action. Animal-assisted therapy is similar service animals in that an animal-human healing partnership is being created. However, the difference is that therapy pets are typically used to treat a mental disability whereas people with physical disabilities use service dogs to help them in many ways. Therapy animals are used in a wide variety of places, such as, hospitals, prisons, nursing homes, therapy sessions, mental healthcare facilities, and even in people’s homes. These amazing animals are used on a wide variety of different disorders, but they are utilized mostly by people suffering from depression, anxiety, and PTSD. For people with these mental health disorders, everything in live can be difficult and challenging, however with the help of animal-assisted therapy, their mood, motivation, and life can dramatically improve. Anyone who hears about these brave, loving animals soon falls in love with them. From a medical standpoint, there have been many successful studies and the support for animal-assisted therapy still continues to grow in doctors and therapists across the nation.
Arluke, A. (1994). Managing emotions in an animal shelter (pp. 145-165). Animals and human society.
Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT), which can be provided in a group or individual settings, is designed to promote improvement in a human’s physical, social, emotional, or cognitive function. An article by Chitic, Rusu, and Szamoskozi (2012) provides an analysis in order to determine the value of AAT. Both dogs and horses that were trained for AAT were examined and studied to determine their effectiveness in treating patients with psychological disorders. The results showed that both therapy dogs and horses were valuable aids to the therapeutic process. The analysis suggests that proper training and repeated sessions were necessary for proper treatment of patients. In addition, certain disorders may benefit more than others in regards to AAT. For example, a child with ADHD may not benefit from a therapy dog’s presence, for it may worsen the hyperactive symptoms. On the other hand, a patient with depression may benefit greatly from the same animal (Chitic, Rusu, Szamoskozi, 2012). These findings are a perfect starting point to answering the research question: Do patients who engage in AAT display a betterment in their overall emotional well-being, as well as show improvement in their interpersonal interactions...
considered to have emotional disturbances and were not in the general classroom all day. These children where in an individual school for children with bad behaviors. The research noted that many of the children were getting the benefit of the classroom, but when crisis arose they would revert back to their bad behaviors. An example of this was a boy who was doing well in the classroom with his behaviors, but when his parents were arrested on felony charges, his behavior became unstable. When the research had started, the school social workers in the schools had therapy dogs and where trained in Animal Based Therapy. When the children’s behaviors acted up, they were sent to the social workers office where the dogs would be. Just by petting the dogs and sitting with them while they were talking to the therapist, the children showed vast improvement in their behavior after the crisis and where more likely to discuss their problems openly. The dogs gave the children support and guidance, which allowed then to open up. (Geist, 2011).
Owning or being around pets can be beneficial to anyone at any age. Since the 1970s, emphasis has been put on the use of pet therapy to help with many disorders and mental states (Moretti, 2011, p. 125). Everyone most likely has experienced stress in their life in one way or the other. Children, adults, and elderly all experience stress, though not to the same degree or from the same causes. Studies have been done on children and elderly patients to determine whether animal -assisted therapy is a good option to reduce stress and other mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, and dementia. A study done has proven that there was a significant improvement in children with several different disorders who were put into animal-assisted therapy (Tsai, 2010, p. 245). Elderly patients with dementia, anxiety, and depression also showed significant signs of improvement from pet therapy (Moretti, 2011, p. 128). College students experience a lot of stress from the pressure of school, jobs, and many other factors. Animal-assisted therapy could be a helpful tool in effectively decreasing stress levels of the students. This form of therapy has been used in many other studies, using several different populations, and observed to assess its usefulness several ways such as decreasing mental disorders, increasing moods, and lower blood pressure. Using pet therapy on college students to reduce anxiety and depression might be a good and interactive form of therapy.
AAT has been implemented in a variety of settings due to its numerous benefits. Other benefits include decreased heart rate (Friedmann, Katcher, Lynch &Thomas, 1980), blood pressure (Anderson, Reid, & Jennings, 1992), and depression while improving self-esteem (Walsh & Mertin, 1994). In children, the implementation and incorporation of animals in therapy is seen to be beneficial in social (Triebenbacher, 2000) and cognitive development (Melson, 2000). Goals of AAT include those that are physical, motivational, educational, and mental. Physical goals include the improvement of fine motor skills.
Many people in the world today suffer with problems such as anxiety and depression. As a way to treat these problems, those people should use animal-assisted therapy. Animal-assisted therapy (also known as pet therapy) is used in many hospitals and is growing more every day.
Owning a pet can have many physical and mental health benefits. Medical studies show having a pet result's in lower blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and triglyceride levels. Pets have a role in cardiovascular health from lowering blood pressure, and they encourage psychosocial stability in owners, which further reduces the risk of heart disease. In the hectic and fast-paced world we live in today, pets are actually saving our lives. Pets provide an excuse to be active, dogs live an active lifestyle, wanting to play and run around outside. By making us more active and improving our health, dogs often provide a good workout! Instead of sitting on the couch being lazy, dogs are eager to transfer their energy and enthusiasm to the owner benefiting both dog and owner in many ways. Studies show that dogs demonstrate trust and provide comfort to the sick or elderly thus helping people to live longer and to be more positive as they age. Animal owners over 75 years of age have f...
The term “stress” has multiple meanings. As Richard Lazarus stated in his 1966 book “Psycho...
The positive advantages of the pet and owner relationship have also been evident in the Mental Health Field. For example, having a pet tends to obstruct the propensity toward a negative self-outlook in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, and ADHD and increases individual participation in their environment by viewing their surroundings in non-threatening ways (Borker & Dawson, 1998; Beck, 2005). Further, the benefits that pets provide has also been demonstrated to lessen symptoms of depression in AIDS patients, ease symptoms of depression and loneliness in older adults, and reduce suffering and anxiety in hospice...
Stress is the body’s natural response to a factor or situation that can affect a person in a negative way. These effects can be physical, emotional or psychological. In some cases stress is good in small amounts as it provides motivation to a person and makes them more productive. However, too much stress can be very harmful to any person. Stress in general has the capability of getting in the way of a person’s everyday life and causing some kind of psychological damage. Most of time people only assume that stress can only affect adults mostly because adults are the only ones who really speak up on the issue of being stressed. But recent studies have shown that stress can have an effect on children as well according to Live Science magazine. Ann E. LaForge, author of Tantrums: Secrets to Calming the Storm answers questions