What’s on your walls? The medical world can reap many benefits from the use of dog wall art.
Michael Puck has written a guest blog.
Since thousands of years humans and dogs have shared a relationship that has brought us many benefits. Imagine the companionship, safety and protection that dogs have provided for millennia. In the last 150-plus years, a clear benefit has been identified in the relationship between humans and dogs. It started when Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, commented in 1860 that “a small pet is often an excellent companion for the sick.”
It took another 70 years until Smokey, a tiny 4-pound Yorkshire Terrier, improved patients’ mental and physical well-being in a military hospital. News of the four-legged healing dog spread quickly. Other military hospitals soon followed suit, reporting countless successes. In the U.S., more than 50 000 therapy dogs are certified.
Therapy dogs can have a profound impact on patients. Researchers at the National Library of Medicine found that therapy dogs reduced negative stressors by 57%, including tension, anxiety anger hostility fatigue inertia depression and dejection.