Ven Griva, Contributor
THE HEALTH of hospitalised heart patients can get a boost from just a
12-minute visit from man's best friend, according to research reported at a recent meeting of the American Heart Association.
Researchers found that a visit from a specially trained four-footed friend helped heart and lung function by lowering pressures, diminishing release of harmful hormones and decreasing anxiety among hospitalised heart failure patients. Benefits exceeded those that came from a visit from a human volunteer or from being left alone.
Animal-assisted therapy has been shown to reduce blood pressure in healthy and hypertensive patients. It reduces anxiety in hospitalised patients, too.
Still, using dog therapy to soothe people's minds and improve health has been considered more a 'nicety' than credible science, said registered nurse, Kathie M. Cole, the study's lead author and clinical nurse at the University of California Los Angles Medical Centre.
To find the potential benefits of animal-assisted therapy on health, researchers studied 76 hospitalised heart failure patients and their reactions to a visit from either a team made up of a human volunteer and dog, a human volunteer alone, or no visit.
"We looked at the dogs' effects on variables that characterise heart failure, including changes in cardiac function, neuroendocrine (stress hormone) activation and psychological changes in mood," Cole said.
The intervention lasted 12 minutes. In the volunteer-dog team group, specially trained dogs (of 12 different breeds) would lie on patients' beds, so patients could touch them while interacting with the volunteer-dog team.
Researchers found that anxiety scores dropped 24 per cent for participants who received a visit from the volunteer-dog team. Scores for the volunteer-only group dropped 10 per cent and the score for the group that received no visit did not change.
"This therapy warrants serious consideration as an adjunct to medical therapy in hospitalised heart failure patients," Cole said. "Dogs are a great comfort. They make people happier, calmer and feel more loved. That is huge when you are scared and not feeling well."
ASPIRIN THERAPY
Recent survey results released by the American College of Preventive Medicine found that 48 per cent of diabetes patients in the United States, older than age 40, fail to use aspirin therapy to reduce their risk of recurrent heart attack or stroke. The same number reported that they had not discussed aspirin therapy with their health care provider.
This population is at heightened risk of cardiovascular events such as heart attack and stroke, and therefore potential candidates for doctor-recommended aspirin therapy based on current American Diabetes Association and United States Preventive Services Task Force guidelines.
The survey, which was conducted by Harris Interactive in collaboration with the American College of Preventive Medicine, a professional society of U.S. physicians, focused on disease prevention and health promotion. It was supported by a grant from the makers of Bayer aspirin.
Heart attack and stroke are the most life-threatening consequences of diabetes, occurring more than twice as often among people with diabetes than in those without. Heart attack accounts for approximately 65 per cent of deaths in people with diabetes.
The American Diabetes Association recommends that aspirin be considered for use in the prevention of both first and recurrent cardiovascular events in patients with diabetes.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says there might be a benefit to daily aspirin use if you have some kind of heart or blood vessel disease, or if you have evidence of poor blood flow to the brain. But, only a doctor can tell you whether the benefits of long-term aspirin use is right for you.
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