Pet Therapy – An Interesting Technique Emerging In Health Care

By | October 31, 2014

Pet-Therapy

Recently, in health care industry a new trend has been seen – curing patients with the help of pet therapy. Many doctors and surgeons are advising patients this treatment seeing the countless advantages it provides. Not only confined to physical health, pet therapy helps in maintaining and enhancing overall health.

Many researchers have found that pet therapy has multiple benefits. Surgeons and physicians notice that patients recover faster due to this technique. Let’s dwell in deep and find out what is pet therapy.

Pet Therapy

It’s a wide spectrum field that includes animal-assisted therapy as well as animal-assisted activities. Animal-assisted therapy is a growing field that uses dogs and other animals to help people cope up with health issues like heart problems and cancer or recover faster after a surgery, accident or mental health problems like anxiety.

On the other hand, animal-assisted activities have a general purpose such as providing comfort and enjoyment for nursing home residents.

Advantages of Pet Therapy

Physical Health

  • It lowers blood pressure
  • Improves cardiovascular health
  • Releases endorphins (oxytocin) that have a calming effect
  • Lowers overall physical pain
  • Having and caring for a pet produces an automatic relaxation response, reducing the dosage of medication that some folks need

 Mental Health

  • It lifts up spirits and lessens depression
  • Decreases feelings of isolation and alienation
  • Encourages communication
  • Pet therapy provides comfort
  • It reduces boredom
  • Creates motivation and helps in faster recovery post surgery

Reading

  • It helps in improving literacy skills in children
  • It aids children to focus better
  • Reading provides non-judgemental and non-stressful environment
  • It increases self-confidence, and reduces self-consciousness

In Physical Therapy

  • It helps in maintaining or increasing motor skills
  • It increases joint movement and improves recovery time
  • This provides motivation to move more, stretch farther and exercise longer

Pet therapy provides numerous advantages. It helps people in numerous ways in dealing with multiple health issues. This emerging technique is spreading widely into the health care arena helping people live a joyful life.