Dadeland Doings • October 13, 2008

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Future research directions

Pets have a special place in the lives of people but, in larger perspective, share many attributes of other members of the living environment. The value of this environment to the physical and mental health of people should be better understood.

The relationship between animals and cardiovascular disease is intriguing. An understanding is needed of the differences in the effect of “bonding” between a person and his pet versus simply the effect of a strange animal on blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. Also, large clinical prospective studies are needed in which animals are randomly placed with postmyocardial infarction patients to examine the magnitude and longevity of protective effects. These studies on people should be repeated on nonhuman animals to generate and test hypotheses about mechanisms of action.

Because of the rapidly increasing size of the elderly population and the overwhelming evidence, anecdotal and large-scale surveys, additional studies

are needed to focus on this population. Future studies should recognize the heterogeneity of this population and the difficulty in isolating the many variables impinging on the older person. Such variables stem from illness, prior experiences with or without pets, and expectations of the benefit of pets (as contrasted to the reality of caring for the pet).

Research shows that caring for an animal can improve your mental and physical well-being.

There’s no doubt that Americans love their pets. A survey by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) shows that more than 57 percent of U.S. households own one or more animals. But can having pets actually provide health benefits? Yes, say experts. “Pet ownership is good for your health both physically and psycho-logically,” says Connecticut psychologist Herbert Nieburg, author of Pet Loss: A Thoughtful Guide for Adults and Children.

Sure, pets provide compan-ionship and unconditional love. But research has shown that they can also help reduce stress and blood pressure in owners, increase longevity in those who’ve had heart attacks, and even relax and improve the appetites of Alzheimer’s patients.

Pets can help prevent loneliness, too. The AVMA survey found that nearly half of respon-dents considered their pets to be companions; only about 2 percent considered them to be property. In fact, Alan Beck, director of the Center for Human-Animal Bond at Purdue University, found in a study that 97 percent of people talk to their pets. “The other 3 percent lied,” he quips.

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The health benefits of pets (continued)

Man's best friend.

We continue our discussion of the health benefits of pets from the October 6 issue.

The role of pets in child development

Studies have demonstrated major developmental changes in how children interact with pets. For example, toddlers (2 to 3 years old) are more likely to hit, poke, or grab their pets (behaviors that might be considered aggressive) than are older children. Three- to 4-year-old children tend to pet their animals more than engage in other behaviors, while 5- and 6-year-olds generally hug, stroke, and massage their pets, suggesting both more sophisticated and “gentle” physical contact patterns and more empathetic social relationships. These age-based changes in patterns of behavioral interactions with pets are generally parallel to the developmental changes in interaction patterns that children have with familiar humans, including parents, siblings, and peers.

Examination of children’s attitudes toward pets reveals that many of them ascribe a rich range of social attributes to these animals. Some of these attributes — especially love and affection, companionship, intimacy, and nurturance — also are used in the children’s description of their relationships with other specific people, but other attributes — for example, ownership and entertainment — are uniquely ascribed to pets. Consider the attributes of companionship and love and affection. Most children rate their own pets very high on both characteristics while they rate neighborhood animals high on companionship but not on love and affection. (By way of comparison, siblings tend to be rated high on companionship but not on love and affection, while the reverse is the case for ratings of grandparents.) Taken as a whole, these results suggest that children’s relationships with familiar animals, especially pets, are unique and different from their relationships with others in their social world. The relationship with pets typically is complementary to these other relationships rather than a substitute for any one type of human relationship.

On the one hand, it has been suggested that exposure to pets should facilitate the establishment and maintenance of relationships with peers, especially in grade and high school. On the other hand, there has been some concern that children who establish too intense a relationship with a pet may suffer in the development of sophisticated and meaningful relationships with other people.

Health correlates of pets in older persons

In addition to examination of the effects of the human-companion animal bond among children and special populations of chronically ill or disabled adults, there has been widespread consideration of the benefits of companion animals for older persons. Interdisciplinary researchers in veterinary medicine, public health, and the behavioral sciences have begun to explore the health correlates of the human-animal bond and to examine the benefits of a wide range of pet-facilitated therapies on the health and functioning of the elderly. The assumption of a salutary effect of pet ownership on the health of older persons is based on a growing body of literature suggesting the importance of social ties and relationships for persons experiencing life changes affecting health or social situations.

Data from a national probability sample of 1,232 older persons living in the community reveal a lack of influence of pet variables on health outcomes in the general population of older persons: (1) no direct association was found between pet variables (pet ownership and attachment) and illness status or levels of depression and (2) no support was found for the protective buffering role of pet ownership/attachment, and (3) there was stability in basic conclusions across subgroup analyses based on sex, age, and pet characteristics.

However, a benefit of pet ownership and attachment in combating depression, but not general illness status, was found among older persons in situations of personal stress who were without adequate human social support (e.g., bereaved persons without a close source of human support). Significant health benefits of human-animal interactions in the general population of older persons may be limited to persons in special “at-risk” circumstances. There is also new research examining the relationship between pet ownership, psychosocial variables, and health care utilization. These data collectively suggest that pet ownership may reduce the demand for care for medically non-serious problems.

Yet the cumulative weight of these studies strongly suggests that psychosocial benefits can be gained from animal visitation programs for at least some older persons in such settings. For example, the presence of animals in institutional settings is associated with the tendency of older persons to smile and talk more, reach out toward people and objects, exhibit more alertness and attention, and experience more symptoms of well-being and less depression. Pet programs have proven superior in producing psychosocial benefits in comparison to some other alternative therapies (e.g., arts and crafts programs, friendly visitor programs, and conventional psychotherapy).

Safety and risks in people-pet relationships

In evaluating the health benefits of pet-people relationships, one also must consider the safety of this intervention for both people and pets — for example, dangers to pets associated with chemicals such as insecticides and pesticides and people’s risks of infections, allergies, and injuries associated with lack of veterinary medical advice.

Although the risks associated with interaction are real for both people and pets, we need additional research to better define those situations, hazards, and populations with high risk as well as very low risk. Reports from agencies in 50 states and studies of 284 nursing homes have shown that visiting and live-in pets can be relatively safe for residents. Other studies emphasize that knowledge and motivation for people and appropriate selection and behavioral training of pets are essential to increase the safety of people-pet interactions.