Hospice care can be scary, but animal therapy helps reassure patients and brings them comfort, relaxation, emotional support, and companionship. Hospice agencies can foster warm, nurturing environments by offering patients opportunities to connect with animals. This can set agencies apart when relatives seek care for their loved ones.
This blog explores animal therapy, how it works, and how hospice agencies can arrange for emotional support animals to visit their patients, sometimes at no cost.
What is Animal Therapy?
Animals have provided companionship to people for centuries. Being around animals does wonders for people’s well-being. Just petting an animal can reduce blood pressure and anxiety. Animal therapy, sometimes called pet therapy, uses this intrinsic connection between animals and people in a targeted way to enhance patients’ physical, cognitive, behavioral, and socio-emotional functions.
For hospice agencies, this means having trained emotional support animals visit patients individually or in groups. These visits have been shown to improve quality of life and mental health, reduce depression, decrease feelings of isolation and increase socialization. Simply having an animal in the room can reduce fear, promote calm, and improve mood and behavior.
How Does Animal Therapy Work?
Humans are social creatures and crave physical and emotional connection. Animals give patients love, empathy, and connection without pretext or judgment. They are attentive, sense and react to moods and emotions, and provide immediate patient feedback.
The spontaneity gained with an animal present forces patients to live in the moment. Not knowing what they will do next creates curiosity and a new focus for patients. A visit from an emotional support animal also creates a natural opportunity for social connection with other patients and provides an opening for a conversation with therapists and other caregivers.
During a visit, animals allow patients to switch out of their role as patients to temporarily become the caregiver for a living, breathing creature. When playing with an emotional support animal, patients feel a sense of control and create memories that can boost their spirits.
How to Bring Animal Therapy to Hospice Care
Setting up a visit from an emotional support animal is simple and often costs nothing. Organizations such as Happy Tails provide regular visits by trained emotional support animals to hospice agencies free of charge. Likewise, Pet Partners is a non-profit that connects animal therapy teams nationwide.
While dogs are perhaps the most well-known emotional support animal, cats also make amazing therapy animals for hospice care. Rabbits, birds, fish, and guinea pigs can spark curiosity and connection, and some hospice agencies even have horses and pigs visit. More recently, robotic animals offer an alternative to live animals, allowing patients to provide care and a tool for social interaction.
After considering types of hospice emotional support animals and identifying an organization, hospice agencies should discuss the unique needs of their patients to ensure the right fit between them and the animals. As cute as puppies and kitties are, they can be too energetic and cause stress for terminally ill patients. Instead, hospice agencies should request visits from experienced emotional support animals comfortable in various settings.
