Pet therapy helps residents with cognitive impairment
Friday December 21, 2007 -- Deron Hamel
Pet therapy programming has been beneficial to residents with dementia at long-term care homes for years, and Leisureworld Caregiving Centre Barrie is no exception.

For about 10 years, residents have been visited two times per week by dogs from the St. John’s Ambulance pet therapy program. The dogs and volunteers who bring them in are trained in all aspects of pet therapy.

Sheila McConnell, the home’s program services manager, credits the program’s longevity to its effectiveness on residents with cognitive impairment.

“Their eyes just light up,” she tells The Morning Report. “Even if they can’t express their (feelings) verbally, you can see it in their expressions and in their eyes.”

McConnell adds that because most residents owned a pet at some point in their life most have a connection to animals.

On the days when the dogs visit the home, the volunteers take them throughout the building, visiting every room on both floors. Even when residents don’t have direct physical contact with the animals, just seeing them in the home can often have a positive impact, McConnell states.

The dogs have also proven to be effective with residents who are palliative. McConnell cites a story about a 103-year-old gentleman at the home who had reached the end-of-life stage. The moment he was given a dog to pet, his demenour changed.

McConnell’s husband and children were visiting the home that day and the family couldn’t believe how well the resident responded.

“My husband and my girls said, ‘Oh, my goodness, mom, we had no idea it was like this,’” says McConnell.

For the past six years, Willows Estate, an OMNI Health Care-owned long-term care home in Aurora, has had a pet therapy program. Like the program at Leisureworld Barrie, dogs are trained by St. John’s Ambulance.

The program at Willows Estate takes place for one hour, three days each week. There are three dogs brought in one at a time for therapy sessions. Two dogs are Labrador retrievers and one is a standard poodle.

When the dogs come into the home, Mazzuca says many residents respond to them immediately.

“I think it comes natural to a lot of people. . . . They are not intimidated. It’s an automatic comfort. It’s a therapy,” says Teddy Mazzuca, the home’s life enrichment co-ordinator.