Children With Mental Health Disorders

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.

Emotional support animals can take on a multitude of jobs that “may include reminding the handler to take medicine, providing safety checks or room searches, or turning on lights for persons with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, interrupting self-mutilation by persons with dissociative identity disorders, and keeping disoriented individuals from danger,” (Brennan). These animals are often considered pets but are actually so much more than that, emotional support animals have a very important role in protecting the mental health of their owners and keep them safe. Not only do these animals protect people’s mental health but they also give people a purpose. Taking care of one of these dogs or other animals gives people something to take care of and focus on. Knowing that there is another living thing that relies on them can be very grounding and keep people connected to something outside of themselves.

Pets have long been known to have beneficial health effects on people, both physically and mentally. However, for someone with severe mental illnesses like major depression and anxiety, a psychiatric service dog can be a life-saver. With time, these dogs become more attuned to the needs of their handler/human, and can often recognize signs that even other people cannot. These non-judgmental, loyal, and trained animals can provide the right kind of care to mental health patients and set them on the path to

There are lots of people who can benefit from pet therapy. People who can benefit from pet therapy are people having denture problems, receiving cancer treatment, people in long term facilities, people hospitalized with chronic heart failure, and veterans with PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder.) Not just people who are dealing with the struggling events can benefit from pet therapy. The person's family can also benefit from pet therapy because they know the person will not be alone anymore. The person's friends can benefit from

Pet therapy is a way of comforting a patient. Although dogs are primarily used, they are not the only

Dogs can help us humans with mental health. Many service dogs are used to help people who are deaf or people that are blind. How about people with mental issues? Dogs not only help us with physical problems but also with mental problems like depression. In the article “Therapy pets and humans with mental health issues” the author “ dog time” starts to state in the 3 paragraph “Trained animals [iii] are used to benefit patients suffering with emotional and behavioral disorders, depression, autism, substance abuse, and dementia.” (2010) This can show how animals can help us with mental issues because animals can understand many struggles us humans have, because after their trained they can not only understand us but also

“A Healthy Dose of Puppy Love” by Kathryn Satterfield describes a new study that shows that dogs can improve an individual’s health by lowering anxiety levels and by improving cardiac function. Specially trained therapy dogs visited a hospital in November in Dallas, Texas to help conduct a study that animals can improve an individual’s health, to do this people split the seventy six patients into a total of three groups: visitors with dogs, visitors, and an “at rest group.” For accurate results researches preformed anxiety tests on the patients before, during, and after the visit, and the results concluded that patients who received visits from people had encountered a ten percent drop in anxiety, while patients who received visits from dogs

To many children, parents are loving caregivers that work around the clock to provide them with the physical and emotional necessities that are essential to a healthy and happy childhood. However, in some unfortunate cases, one or both parents are unable to care for their children. For whatever reason it may be, it is difficult on one or both parents and their children when they are separated, but what if the parents were unfit to take care of their children and they continue to do so? Children with parents who are mentally ill tend to grow up in an environment that is hostile or otherwise unhealthy. What, exactly, are the consequences of children being raised by mentally ill parents?

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) (2013) defines Schizophrenia as one of the most common serious mental health conditions affecting men and women equally. It is a chronic condition that causes a range of different psychological symptoms including hallucinations (hearing or seeing things that do not exist) and delusions (believing in things that are untrue). These symptoms are often referred to as ‘symptoms of psychosis’, when an individual cannot distinguish between reality and their imagination (DSM, 2013). Wahashi et al. (2007) suggest that patients with schizophrenia often have difficulty in coping with everyday stressors and suffer emotional withdrawal and poor social functioning this can be particularly pronounced in patients living in an institutionalised setting (Wahashi et al. 2007).

Not only are pets therapeutic for humans but they also can be beneficial to the physical well-being of a person. Having a pet can mean staying active and thus being physically healthier. While many pets require walking, playing or simply require more physical work like cleaning, bathing etc. it pushes people to be more active on a daily basis which is healthier than sitting on a couch watching television. Having a pet can also add structure or a daily routine to a person’s life. For example “Dogs require a regular feeding and exercise schedule. Having a consistent routine keeps a dog balanced and calm—and it can work for you, too. No matter your mood—depressed, anxious, or stressed—one plaintive look from your dog and you’ll have to get out

They say dogs are a man’s best friend but many hospitals do not welcome pets into hospital settings. Only service dog are freely welcomed into hospitals but many families do not have disabilities that they require them. Many families have regular pets they consider as family members. Patients feel that pets are both physically and emotionally beneficial to their owners in time of need. Pets are now becoming officially a member of people’s families and treated as one too. They are not allowed to care and comfort family members in the hospitals. Many pets have the ability to make people feel better in stressful situations for example being confined in hospital rooms after long surgeries. Man people argue spending time with pets can reduce their pain levels, anxiety, depression and fatigue (“Hospital Opens,” 2016). Having pets in the hospital with their sick ones can decrease the amount of healing time there is need. Pets bring incredible sense of happiness, joy and hopeful in stressful matters. Pets are believed to promote mental and physical health among

Therapy animals can bring affection, comfort and happiness to people in confined living situations. For example: in a hospital for a short stay or living in an assisted living home.10 Also therapy animals are able to help people with learning difficulties, help people with mental and physical therapy and provide comfort to people in stressful situations such as when recovering from a disaster. It has been reported that benefits from pet-therapy programs include a reduction in stress, a boost in self-esteem, improved mood, and better communication skills. Animal therapy is also used extensively to treat depression or grieving.5 This is backed up by Dogtime who have also noted that visiting with therapy animals has been shown to lower the anxiety and increase participation in people. In therapy, the animal is seen as a friend and ally, thus presenting a safe atmosphere for sharing, which allows for more participation and honestly within the time spent in the therapy session. Animal therapy is a good way to help deal with a mental health issue such as anxiety and depression and compared to some treatments is more relaxing and enjoyable as dogs have the ability to lighten the mood. Some treatments such as medication can only help some parts of the issue and for people who have anxiety or depression they may still feel alone or scared and the company of a therapy animal provides that

Dogs make great pets- just ask the millions of dog owners all over the world. But dogs can be more than just a pet- they can be therapists too. The bond between humans and dogs goes back to the stone age, with their wolf-like ancestors. Over time, dogs have evolved to be less aggressive and more cute and cuddly to better befriend us humans. With this strong bond, dogs can be helpful for humans therapeutically. Dogs have been used in court to help victims open up about trauma, in schools to help kids gain confidence in reading aloud, in prisons to bring positivity, in aiding and comforting the disabled, and more.

Pet therapy has been shown to improve the mood of an individual by reducing stress in a high stress environment such as a hospital, as shown by Creating a Therapeutic and Healing Environment with a Pet Therapy, a study by Dr. Amanda Coakley, program designed around an existing pet therapy program. The study set out to evaluate the effectiveness of pet therapy programs in improving “behavioral, and mood outcomes and experiences of hospitalized patients” and hypothesized that “patients who received… pet therapy visit[s] would have lower vital signs, less pain, more energy, and better mood”. The study measured

The introduction of animals or pets can help prevent or manage depression symptoms and improve quality of life by fulfilling the social and emotional needs of a person. The reason for this is animal companionship offers non-human social support, enables interactions with other people, makes fearful events less stressful, and moderates the cardiovascular stress response (Friedmann, Thomas, & Son, 2015). For these reasons, many long-term facilities offer animal companionship as part of their holistic model. Although, many studies have proven benefits of animal companionship, there is limited data on health care professionals’ observations of this phenomenon improving the quality of life of their patients.