Animal Assisted Therapy Benefits

In many hospitals animals can often be found on certain days making visits to sick patients. These visits by animals are referred to as animal assisted therapy (AAT). This therapy is believed to have therapeutic benefits to patients in hospitals and nursing homes. Some of the believed benefits of AAT are lowering blood pressure, decreasing anxiety, and increasing overall happiness. Animal assisted therapy has been used for decades, as Nimer and Lundahl (2007) state “in the 19th century Florence Nightingale suggested a bird might be the primary source of pleasure for persons confided to the same room due to medical problems (p. 225). In more recent years’ animal assisted therapy has become more popular and has sparked more questions as to how beneficial it can be for patients. As stated earlier animal assisted therapy have been around for many …show more content…
With the recent increasing interest there have been many different studies showing the benefits of animal assisted therapy throughout the years. In 2011 Hamrick reported “AAT has shown promising benefits, and patients regularly comment that they enjoy the time they spent with the therapy animal (p.4). Not only do patients enjoy the time spent there are medical benefits associated with spending time with animals. One medical benefit of AAT is lowering blood pressures. One study that Morrison (2007) referred to was a study where participants had time set aside to pet and hold cats. Blood pressures were measured for both a control group and the therapy group before and after petting the cats. The patients in the pet therapy group had a significant decline in both the systolic and diastolic blood pressures, as for the control there was no change (p.54). This is one of many studies that have evidence regarding decreasing blood pressure with animal assisted