Muristek
Therapy dogs can help reduce stress, pain and anxiety levels, research suggests. — AFP pic
Follow us on Instagram and subscribe to our Telegram channel for the latest updates.
ONTARIO, March 17 ― According to a Canadian study, spending at least 10 minutes with a therapy dog can relieve pain, stress and anxiety. The researchers investigated the effects of therapy dogs among patients admitted to an emergency department.
Can dogs help relieve pain? According to a Canadian study, published in the Plos One journal, the presence of therapy dogs in the emergency room could help reduce pain and anxiety. Therapy dogs could provide an interesting solution at a time when pain management is one of the concerns of medical staff attending to ER patients.
To conduct their study, the researchers focused on patients in the Emergency Department of the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon, Canada. They first asked the volunteers to self-assess their pain level on a scale of zero to 10. They also recorded their level of anxiety and well-being. The specialists then asked the patients to spend 10 minutes with a therapy dog. This involved spending time with a handler and a dog. After the 10 minutes, the volunteers were asked to reassess their level of pain, anxiety and well-being. Those who did not want to see a therapy dog were similarly asked to reassess their level of pain, anxiety and well-being. A total of 211 volunteers participated in the study.
“Participants in the therapy dog team group rated pain significantly lower than those in the control group at the post-intervention measurement,” the researchers note. “These findings suggest that the therapy dog intervention had a positive effect on reducing participant pain, and that this effect is similar for people of both male and female genders.” Positive effects were similarly observed on well-being and anxiety. However, the researchers did not find any impact on blood pressure or heart rate 30 minutes after the experiment.
While the effects of therapy dogs have yet to be fully explored, previous studies highlight the soothing role of animals for both patients and health care professionals. In 2012, researchers “found that both patients and staff were supportive of visiting therapy dogs in a Midwest hospital in the USA,” the scientists explain. ― ETX Studio