SHOULD DOGS BE ALLOWED IN HOSPITALS?
THE BENEFITS TO PATIENTS IS INVALUABLE
JUST ASK THE PATIENTS
THE FOLLOWING IS TAKEN FROM A LIVE INTERVIEW
There we go. 
A dog 
on 
a hospital 
bed 
may look 
unusual, 
but 
A recent study shows heart failure patients can benefit when visited by man’s best friend. Tova a long hair great Pyrenees and Joey a golden retriever participated in this study. These specially trained dogs belonged to an animal-assisted therapy program called Pak, which stands for people animal connection. As part of the study, they visited patients hospitalized with heart failure. Patients like Michael Johnson who waits for a new heart. He can’t have family or friends here. They’re kind of like the next best thing I think, and I always feel a little bit better afterward. I think we’ve always known that dogs have made people feel better and this study was conducted to validate and lend credibility to the field of animal-assisted therapy.
In this study, 76 patients were divided into three groups for 12 minutes sessions. Patients received visits from either a volunteer with a dog, volunteer without a dog, or were left alone. Heart and lung pressures and stress hormone levels in the blood were measured before, during, and after each 12- minute session in all three groups. Patients also answered questions about their level of anxiety. The study presented at the American heart association scientific sessions found the group that received visits with the dogs had improved heart and lung pressures, decreased stress hormones, and less anxiety than the other two groups.
I was pleased to see that there was a decrease in stress hormones because it helped explain why the heart pressures were lower and the patients felt better. Had less anxiety.
Animal-assisted therapy, volunteers in the study say, aside from the measurable health benefits, the mere presence and touch of the dogs help lift the spirits of heart failure patients.
Well, as soon as you enter the room, the patient will smile 
at 
look at your dog and they’ll welcome your animal with open arms and can’t wait to get that dog, your dog on their bed. And they, and they just look forward to all these scheduled visits. this is, this is the best part of their day by far. It really changes the whole environment for them in the hospital for the time that the dogs are there. I think the dogs have something that we don’t understand that they can give to patients.
at look at your dog and they’ll welcome your animal with open arms and can’t wait to get that dog, your dog on their bed. And they, and they just look forward to all these scheduled visits. this is, this is the best part of their day by far. It really changes the whole environment for them in the hospital for the time that the dogs are there. I think the dogs have something that we don’t understand that they can give to patients. The study findings suggest that dogs can make a difference. That animal-assisted therapy is an effective intervention that can benefit hospitalized heart failure patients both physiologically and emotionally.
Now we have the data to prove that we could move forward to, yeah, we could encourage, the name and to understand that dogs do, provide therapy for patients in heart failure.
Researchers say the study also lends credibility to using animal-assisted therapy in other areas as well. This is Diana Hunter Jones.
