Encyclopedia of animal rights and animal 101

58

| Animal-Assisted Therapy

ANIMAL-ASSISTED
THERAPY
Animals’ ability to motivate and bring
comfort and joy to people’s lives can be
harnessed to enhance the quality of a person’s life. Dramatic evidence of benefits
in specific cases inspires people to incorporate animals into institutional settings,
and some make regular visits with a companion animal to a facility. It is not surprising that the practice of using animals
for activities, therapy, and in education
has developed faster than the scientific
knowledge of efficacy, the animals’
needs, and the educational curricula for
health professionals.
Seeing a sick or depressed child come
alive in the presence of a dog, or an elderly
person with Alzheimer’s disease emerge
from a silent cloud when a cat approaches
motivates countless people to participate
as volunteers in animal-assisted activities, therapy, and education. Although
such programs are staffed by volunteers
in virtually every community, the promise
of animals helping people remains to be
broadly mainstreamed in medical settings
as a common intervention for treatment.
Standards for veterinary screening and
oversight of the animals is an essential
aspect of an integrated plan for therapy
that uses animals.

People’s enjoyment of animals, along
with growing evidence for the healthful effects of contact with companion
animals, has facilitated the expanding
practice of incorporating animals in interventions. Therapeutic uses of animals
range from brief visits to full-time partnership. In the United States, since the
1980s, dogs and cats have been brought
to visit in nursing homes and hospitals.
Full-time service dogs also began to

be placed with persons using wheelchairs, providing them with therapeutic
companionship and comfort 24 hours a
day, and normalizing their lives in the
community.
Assistance dogs are now specially
trained to offer specific assistance in a
growing range of tasks. Dogs offer emotional support and companionship that
presumably are of greater importance
than the instrumental tasks they perform.
Dogs assist people with their personal
needs, including giving warning and assistance with epileptic seizures, warning
of hypoglycemic episodes, and calming during episodes of mental illness.
Whether the animal is a short-term visitor
brought by a handler or a full-time assistance animal, they have the potential
to be beneficial.
Another common animal-assisted
intervention that requires professional
supervision, physical infrastructure, extensive care and management for the
horses, and ongoing assistance from several helpers, is equine assisted therapy, or
hippotherapy, in which the movement of
horseback riding is used to offer muscular and postural stimulation and motivate

riders in their learning and classroom activities. Since a treatment team is required
for working with horses, special organizations address this form of therapy, including the North American Riding for
the Handicapped Association (NARHA).

The Animal and Handler
Many applications of animal-assisted
activities, therapy, and education use an
animal that is brought by a handler to
serve another person who can benefit.
The handler may complete special instruction courses and take the animal for
training and screening in order to be well-