Facts About Animals
‘Helping Animals Heal People’ isn’t just a clever tagline. It’s a real thing.
Animals and humans have existed in therapeutic relationships with each other for more than 12,000 years. That’s a fact! Researching animal effects on human health and well-being began during the late 1970s and more needs to be done. Therefore, 1 FUR 1 Foundation developed a researched project in 2019 which measures the impact our animal assisted activity (AAA) programs were having on patients. Our data confirms what we already suspected: 70% of children -AND- seniors with disabilities benefited from animal assisted intervention, as part of their alternative health care plan. During the pandemic, we have been working on incorporating Animal Related Engagements (ARE) as part of our free animal assisted services provided to children and seniors with disabilities. These activities may include:
- Virtual Therapy Animal Visits
- Animal-Based Arts and Crafts
- Video Content that Focuses on Animals
- Connect with Local Animal Organizations
- Provide Education Related to Animals
Read the white paper on Animal Related Engagement (ARE) and the many benefits from the Power of the Human-Animal Bond When Personal Interaction Is Not Possible.
Types of Animal Assisted Interventions (AAI)
Animal Assisted Activity (AAA) programs utilize pets as therapy to help people with a source of motivation and happiness. The elderly, children and many others benefit immensely from the companionship and opportunity for interaction with animals ranging from cats and dogs to rabbits and llamas. Click here to learn the difference between animal assisted therapy (AAT) vs. animal assisted activities (AAA). Both of these animal assisted interactions (AAI):
- Help the elderly abate feelings of loneliness
- Improve children’s reading skills
- Enhance socialization for people with autism
- Speed up inpatient’s recovery time
Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT) is a goal oriented, planned, structured and documented therapeutic intervention directed by a licensed health and human service providers. AAT programs are designed to promote improvement in human physical, social, emotional, or cognitive functions. Center around highly trained and certified therapy dogs and horses that help:
- People receiving cancer treatment
- Children with special needs and ADD/ADHD
- Patients recovering from surgery
- Children with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
- Elderly in long-term care facilities and hospice
Believe in the Possibilities
Assistance dogs not only provide a specific service to their handlers, but also greatly enhance the quality of their lives with a new sense of freedom and independence, as stated by Assistance Dog International. Although Guide Dogs for the blind have been trained formally for over seventy years, training dogs for people with physical and mental health disabilities is a much more recent concept. These highly trained animals allow them to better function in society and can have many different purposes, such as:
- They lovingly guide the blind
- Protect epileptics during seizures
- Alert diabetics of low/high blood sugar levels
- Detect and alert panic attacks for PTSD sufferers
- Remind elderly owners to take their medication.
Learn substantiated facts
We carefully curate medical studies that are part of the The National Network of Libraries of Medicine, which consists of over 6,000 member organizations nationwide. The mission of the NLM is to advance the progress of medicine and improve the public health by: 1) providing all U.S. health professionals equal access to biomedical information and, 2) improving the public’s access to information, enabling them to make informed decisions about their health and healthcare. See the medical study timeline below…
Resources for Assistance Animals:
Service, hearing and guide dogs truly are their owners’ other half. There are three types:
Animal assisted therapy (AAT) sessions can be done in variety of settings by a variety of animals but they must be supervised by a licensed medical professional. The most popular AAT types are: