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Essays on animal assisted therapy
Essays on animal assisted therapy
Essays on animal assisted therapy
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Owning or being around pets can be beneficial to anyone at any age. Since the 1970s, emphasis has been put on the use of pet therapy to help with many disorders and mental states (Moretti, 2011, p. 125). Everyone most likely has experienced stress in their life in one way or the other. Children, adults, and elderly all experience stress, though not to the same degree or from the same causes. Studies have been done on children and elderly patients to determine whether animal -assisted therapy is a good option to reduce stress and other mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, and dementia. A study done has proven that there was a significant improvement in children with several different disorders who were put into animal-assisted therapy (Tsai, 2010, p. 245). Elderly patients with dementia, anxiety, and depression also showed significant signs of improvement from pet therapy (Moretti, 2011, p. 128). College students experience a lot of stress from the pressure of school, jobs, and many other factors. Animal-assisted therapy could be a helpful tool in effectively decreasing stress levels of the students. This form of therapy has been used in many other studies, using several different populations, and observed to assess its usefulness several ways such as decreasing mental disorders, increasing moods, and lower blood pressure. Using pet therapy on college students to reduce anxiety and depression might be a good and interactive form of therapy.
Rachael A. Jasperson (2013) examined the effectiveness of animal-assisted therapy (AAT) on female inmates' levels of distress, interpersonal relationships, and social role performance. Using incarcerated women in the Utah State Prison, Jasperson (2013) investigated using an experimen...
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... in adults. Animal-assisted therapy could be used to help adults manage stress in a fun, new way. One threat to validity is that this is a small study and a few people dropped out in both groups which could affect results. In future studies, bigger groups of participants could be used and other therapies could be compared to the AAT.
Animal-assisted therapy could have a significant effect on people's wellbeing such as depression, anxiety, mental disorders, and overall happiness. Bigger and longer studies may help in representing results better than those listed. We will hope to conclude whether animal-assisted therapy is a good form of therapy to use on college students with anxiety and depression. It is hypothesized that college students placed in the animal-assisted therapy, compared to those in the control group, will show lower scores of anxiety and depression.
Service dogs are a low risk treatment, that can replace dangerous medication and expensive devices. For a purebred service dog is $20,000, however there are non profit organizations that provide service dogs at a much lower cost, but there is usually a long wait list (“Costs”). ASDA (Autism Service Dogs of America) sets a donation goal of $13,500 for every approved family, which is always achieved. Another option is buying the dog from a breeder and paying for the training and accessories. If a puppy is purchased from a dog breeder for around $2,500, in two years time the dog would have costed around $5,200 dollars. The rest of the $ 2,700 comes from vet bills, service gear, training expenses, food, treats, and toys. (“Service”) Getting a dog from a rescue center will cost about the same amount because usually vet bills and training expenses are incrases. However in the long run the owner is most likely to spend more money on a rescue dog, because they often have more issues, physically and mentally which cause them to wear out faster. There is no health insurance that cover service animals. Service dogs however do replace the nasty side effects of some medication, and devices that won't provide companionship. Although the average hearing aid costs $4,000, hearing aides need replaced as the person grows, and need repairs as well, putting the total
So where is the middle ground in animals use in psychological research? In summary of all the information mentioned in this paper we are, in a way already at the middle ground. Since the majority of psychological research is conducted for comparative psychological gain, then it is in the best interest of animals to be used in the research. How can the use of animals in research are considered truly cruel to animals if it is in that species best interest. Along with the strict regulations out in place by the APA and the IACUC, I believe that the Rogerian style middle ground is achieved. I fully support the study of animals in psychology.
Frankie Trull. “Animals in Research is Critical to Continued Progress in Human Health.” Ed. Jeanne Williams. The Society for Advancement of Education: 1989. Print.
The US Census in 2000 has reported that, during the late 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century there has been a large increase in the number of elderly people living in the United States of America, which will likely result in an increased incidence of dementia. In recent years, dog-assisted therapy has been widely regarded as a generally accepted method of providing elderly residents with good feelings and an increase in self-maintenance behavior. The aim of this study is to examine the psychological and behavioral effects of dog-assisted therapy on elderly residents with dementia. I predict that dog-assisted therapy will help elderly people with dementia with their behavioral and emotional problems such as aggression, agitation and psychosis.
Everyone has emotions and everyone deals with them differently. The psychologists in Japan have been more clinically correct and culturally sensitive to use psychotherapy techniques for dealing with depression. When the western markets came into their territory, the markets slowly began to manipulate the Japanese. In contrary, the people of that country might be getting more help from their psychological immune systems by not changing the way they label their feelings than they do with the medications. Animals who are constantly disrupted by humans have the ability to get tempered and show this anger through aggressive behavior. Elephants who have been taken away from their families and homes go through the most traumas and as the emotions start to build up, one day it will all just trigger. We cannot just sit back and watch these animals while they go through such distress. We know we have to help these animals without disrupting their environments. We can do so by psychologically healing these animals. Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, and to heal. It has been said, “time heals all wounds.” I
"Animal-Assisted Therapy." Animal Assisted Therapy, Exploring the Therapeutic Link between Animals and Humans. American Humane Association, 2013. Web. 13 Mar. 2014. .
Scientific and Humane Issues in the Use of Random Source Dogs and Cats in Research. Washington, D.C: National Academies Press, 2009. Print.
Research has been done in the area of human-animal companionship and security, and stress management. Due to the relative newness of this field and the difficulties in studying it, most research has been concentrated on the elderly, specifically, institutionalized elderly. Pets have been introduced into these settings in order to minimize the negative consequences of institutionalization. Most research has been conducted on the extreme ends of the continuum, either very brief visitation or therapy of resident pets studies (Wrinkler 216).
In the field of therapy, there are numerous of therapy available out there for different type of individuals and situations as well. There is one type of therapy that usually contains people and animal, it is animal-assisted therapy is a therapeutic approach that brings animals and individuals with physical and/or emotional needs together to perform the therapy. Animal-assisted therapy tend to be focused on individuals either children or elderly for them to be able to connect with the animal thus feeling comfortable talking with the therapist. Pet therapy works for all ages, whether sick or not (Lanchnit, 2011). Although, this paper, most of the focus is on animal-assisted therapy towards children using dogs.
"Why Animal Experimentation Doesn't Work-Reason 1: Stressed Animals Yield Poor Data." Huffington Post 31 07 2013, n. pag. Web. 17 Dec. 2013. .
Owning a pet can have many physical and mental health benefits. Medical studies show having a pet result's in lower blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and triglyceride levels. Pets have a role in cardiovascular health from lowering blood pressure, and they encourage psychosocial stability in owners, which further reduces the risk of heart disease. In the hectic and fast-paced world we live in today, pets are actually saving our lives. Pets provide an excuse to be active, dogs live an active lifestyle, wanting to play and run around outside. By making us more active and improving our health, dogs often provide a good workout! Instead of sitting on the couch being lazy, dogs are eager to transfer their energy and enthusiasm to the owner benefiting both dog and owner in many ways. Studies show that dogs demonstrate trust and provide comfort to the sick or elderly thus helping people to live longer and to be more positive as they age. Animal owners over 75 years of age have f...
Everyday, everywhere around the world, animals are being held captive. Captivity deprives animals of the life that they deserve and could have carried out in the wild peacefully. Today, zoos, aquariums, and circuses are very popular places of interest due to the entertainment offered for families and especially children. Zoos, aquariums, and circuses put on entertaining shows to show off their talented, cute, and interesting animals. Although, what most people do not realize is the fact that these animals are put under a tremendous amount of stress and usually suffer from depression, boredom, illnesses, or other terrible factors.
For decades humans have been using dogs and their abilities in a number of different ways, from bomb and drug detection to service dogs, canines are a much loved and integral part of our society. Dogs are remarkable creatures, it is known that dogs have extraordinarily strong senses, their sense of smell, for example, is 100 000 times stronger than the average humans. With information from recent studies and the knowledge of canine’s olfactory abilities, it has been discovered that dogs are capable of smelling and detecting cancer in humans, long before we notice anything. If we could find a way to integrate this ability into the medical field, it has the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives.
When considering the advantages and disadvantages of animal research, it is important to take into account the successes that have emerged from animal research, like the development of psychotropic medications. The use of animal research has helped some way in the development of everything from the Tuberculosis cure, to the Polio vaccine, to the treatment of AIDS (Gluck, 2003).
Many psychiatrists have found that patients with anger management problems can be calmer with a pet around the house. Sometimes, just the feel of a pet in the house can do wonders on the nerves and eliminate certain aggravation. A significant point that has been brought up by animal right activists is that abuse inflicted on animals is, in many cases caused by frustration caused by an outside conflict. Outside conflicts can be caused by work stress, school or relationships.