Every year around finals, Penn State brings dogs onto campus to help relax the students in stressful times. You not only see this growing trend on campus, but you also see more therapy animals in public. Now a days its common to have all kinds of illness being treated with animal therapy. Everything from PTSD to Seizures can now be treated or helped by your furry friend!
PTSD is a condition known as Post Traumatic Stress disorder that leaves you feeling alone, scared or losing control of yourself. It can be caused by numerous factors but one thing is for certain, dogs and other pets can help combat the painful symptoms one might have from PTSD.
Studies show that people who own pets report having lower stress levels on the whole. Not only did the study show longitudinal examples of lowered stress level with the individuals, but it also had no age range cap. Children to older adults with Alzheimer’s were taken into account in the study which made it more credible having such a large variety and population. Not only did the study give an array of illnesses that were impacted by owning a therapy pet, but there was also links to other studies that showed higher survival rates of particular illness that were more life threatening.
Some confounding variable might play a role in the researchers results such as, likelihood that particular stressors are no longer in your life, or another variable could be the degree to which your illness effected you. You could get different results based on if you asked a child about reporting better health as opposed to someone who has had a stroke. The study does suggest that it has looked at meta-analysis since it brings up other studies, but it doesn’t go into detail as to the study repeating another study.
Hello,
I loved reading about this topic because 1. I love dogs! I firmly believe that dogs are better therapy than people because they don’t force you to talk nor do they try to fix you- all they have to do is just be there, which they always are. I think when a dog cuddles with you, you grow a connection with it. My dog recently passed away after 14 years and she always made me feel better. I think I formed a deeper connection with her than anyone in my life besides my family/friends because I never loved something before her. Dogs have a gift of healing and I think people should give them a chance. Here’s an article on therapy dogs in health care setting-http://halsansnatur.se/images/media/disalvo%20et.al.pdf, I thought you might enjoy!
Dogs always calm me down so this post is definitely relatable. I think they lower people’s stress levels because they are so fun to play with and simply make all other problems disappear for the time being. Every time I go home and see my dog, it calms me down because he is like a best friend to me. They are so loving and usually do nothing but help whatever a person is going through. Service dogs, for instance, help people. Thanks for sharing!
I”ve seen a lot more cases of therapy dogs and I think its a great purpose for the animals. They can receive and give love in a more purposeful way than just simply being a pet.