Imagine sitting in a hospital, anxious about a medical event, when a golden retriever walks in to greet you and ease your mind. If this sounds impossible, think again; that pooch is a therapy dog, one of several dozen working in New Jersey hospitals every day.
Studies have found patients experience tangible health benefits like lowered blood pressure, decreased anxiety levels and general behavioral improvements from interacting with therapy dogs. They are particularly helpful to patients with cognitive impairments or trauma, and to children, providing a measurable improvement in quality of life.
“It’s not an accident that they say a dog is man and woman’s best friend. There is something about the human-animal bond that is sometimes beyond explanation,” says Carrie Plantamura, head of Soothing Paws at Morristown Medical Center, the therapy-dog program of Atlantic Health System. Her organization provides bonding services to patients at seven different Atlantic-affiliated hospitals upon request of the medical staff or patient.
Hackensack University Medical Center has operated a pet-therapy program since 1992. Hospitals such as Cooperman Barnabas and Children’s Specialized Hospital, both under RWJBarnabas Health, maintain full-time facility therapy dogs and their handlers.
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The use of therapy dogs started in earnest in the 1970s. “Programs generally started in a grassroots way,” according to Plantamura, with many beginning accidentally as a doctor or scientist discovered the effect of animals on their patients. Dr. Aubrey Fine, one of her professors, “found that [child patients] would open up a little more when his golden retrievers were there.” Soothing Paws was started in a similar way in 2008, and now fields approximately 80 volunteer human-pet teams.
Therapy dogs have no special training, but prospective canine helpers go through a rigorous registration process to determine if they have the temperament for a hospital setting. Plantamura is an advocate for certification in the industry and is proud that her program emphasizes the well-being of the dogs as much as the humans they help.
“We feel the need, and we want to elevate the clinical practice of therapy dogs,” she says, “because they are in a higher-stakes environment.”
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