Originally published December 1 2005
Study claims dogs may provide significant therapy to heart patients
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Kathie Cole, a nurse at UCLA Medical Center, led a study aimed at demonstrating the therapeutic effect of dogs on heart patients, and the results showed promise for the future use of dogs in therapy.
New research indicates that hospitals that use such pet therapy sessions aren't barking up the wrong tree.
The novel study, presented Tuesday at an American Heart Association meeting, is one of the first to use scientific measurements to document that therapeutic dogs lower anxiety, stress and heart and lung pressure among heart-failure patients.
"You can see it on their face; first you see a smile, and then you see the worries of the world roll off their shoulders," said Kathie Cole, a nurse at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center who led the study.
Leslie Kern, director of cardiac research for the heart institute at Memorial Medical Center in Long Beach, Calif., said such visits help make patients' lives more normal.
Cole and her colleagues studied 76 heart-failure patients --- average age 57 --- who got either a visit from a volunteer, a volunteer plus a dog or no visit.
Anxiety as measured by a standard rating scale dropped 24 percent for those visited by the dog and volunteer team, but by only 10 percent for those visited by just a volunteer.
Levels of epinephrine, a hormone the body makes when under stress, dropped about 17 percent in patients visited by a person and a dog, and 2 percent in those visited just by a person.
But levels rose about 7 percent in the group that didn't get visitors.
The dogs used in the study were carefully screened at UCLA and had to pass a behavior test and checkup by a veterinarian, Cole said.
Patients were also asked if they liked dogs and wanted to be part of the study, which was funded by the Pet Care Trust Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes the value of animals in society.
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