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Companion Animal Fostering as Health Promotion: A Literature Review
| Contributor(s):: Roseveare, C., Breheny, M., Mansvelt, J., Murray, L., Wilkie, M., Gates, M. C.
There is growing interest in the health-promoting potential of human-companion animal relationships from a broad public health perspective while acknowledging barriers to ownership, particularly for older adults. Companion animal fostering is an alternative to pet ownership that aligns with the...
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Considering Cats, Dogs, and Contradictions: Pets and Their Relational Influence on Experiences of Aging in Place
| Contributor(s):: Toohey, A. M.
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Age modifies the association between pet ownership and cardiovascular disease
| Contributor(s):: Watson, K. M., Kahe, K., Shier, T. A., Li, M.
INTRODUCTION: Studies examining associations between pet ownership and cardiovascular disease have yielded inconsistent results. These discrepancies may be partially explained by variations in age and sex across study populations. Our study included 6,632 American Gut Project participants who...
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Pet Ownership and Maintenance of Physical Function in Older Adults-Evidence From the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA)
| Contributor(s):: Friedmann, E., Gee, N. R., Simonsick, E. M., Barr, E., Resnick, B., Werthman, E., Adesanya, I.
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Pet ownership or human-animal interaction has been associated with better health outcomes in individuals with disease or disability. We hypothesized that pet ownership, as well as dog ownership and cat ownership separately, are associated with maintaining physical...
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Testing Leash Walking Training as a Physical Activity Intervention for Older Adult Dog Owners: A Feasibility Study
| Contributor(s):: Potter, K., Rajala, C., Chase, C. J., LeBlanc, R.
Dog walking is a physical activity (PA) with many health benefits for older adults. Dog behavior issues can be a barrier to dog walking. This study piloted leash manners training as a PA intervention for dog owners ages 60+ years. Fourteen dog owners (mean age = 65 years, female = 71%) enrolled...
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Pet ownership is associated with greater cognitive and brain health in a cross-sectional sample across the adult lifespan
| Contributor(s):: McDonough, I. M., Erwin, H. B., Sin, N. L., Allen, R. S.
Human-animal interactions that stem from pet ownership have a wide range of benefits for social, emotional, and physical health. These factors also tend to improve cognition. Following this logic, owning a pet could indirectly enhance cognitive and brain health through mechanisms like...
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Analysis of Trunk Neuromuscular Activation During Equine-Assisted Therapy in Older Adults
| Contributor(s):: de Mello, E. C., Diniz, L. H., Lage, J. B., Ribeiro, M. F., Bevilacqua Junior, D. E., Rosa, R. C., Cardoso, F. A. G., Ferreira, A. A., Ferraz, M. L. F., Teixeira, V. P. A., Espindula, A. P.
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Functional Outcomes in a Randomized Controlled Trial of Animal-Assisted Therapy on Middle-Aged and Older Adults with Schizophrenia
| Contributor(s):: Chen, C. R., Hung, C. F., Lee, Y. W., Tseng, W. T., Chen, M. L., Chen, T. T.
Deficits in cognition, physical, and social functions in adults with schizophrenia may become salient with aging. While animal-assisted therapy (AAT) can benefit physical function in older adults and improve symptoms of psychotic disorders, the effect of AAT on middle-aged patients with...
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Leashes, Litterboxes, and Lifelines: Exploring Volunteer-Based Pet Care Assistance Programs for Older Adults
| Contributor(s):: McLennan, K., Rock, M. J., Mattos, E., Toohey, A. M.
At the convergence of population aging and pet-ownership, community stakeholders are well-positioned to support older adults’ relationships with companion animals through age-related transitions in health and living arrangements. In this study’s setting, a volunteer-based pet care...
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Dog walk frequency and duration: Analysis of a cohort of dogs up to 15 months of age
| Contributor(s):: Kinsman, Rachel H., Main, Kate E., Casey, Rachel A., Da Costa, Rosa E. P., Owczarczak-Garstecka, Sara C., Knowles, Toby G., Tasker, Séverine, Murray, Jane K.
Regular exercise for dogs has health and welfare benefits. This study sought to address a gap in existing research regarding what constitutes ‘common’ age-specific walking practices by owners of young dogs, and how these practices change as the dogs reach adulthood. Dog owners living in the United...
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Assessing chimpanzees’ fluency of movement: Applications for monitoring health and welfare
| Contributor(s):: Hopper, Lydia M., Lake, Benjamin R., Leinwand, Jesse G., Fultz, Amy, Ross, Stephen R.
With age, primates’ activity levels and ease of movement may decline and changes in locomotory behaviour may reflect changes in health. Thus, developing quick and reliable measures of movement has important applications for measuring recovery from disease, injury, or any age-related mobility...
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Visiting Hours: Spacetimes of Human-Animal Interaction in South African Elder Care
| Contributor(s):: Golomski, C.
This article examines human-animal interaction in elder care by focusing on an old age home in postapartheid South Africa. Residents admire and desire to be near animals, but staff mostly prohibit pets and service animals due to regulations about hygiene and frailty. Instead, people make...
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Assistive Technology Use among Older Adults with Vision Loss: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Canadian Newspapers
| Contributor(s):: Fuchigami, Katharine, McGrath, Colleen, Bengall, Jordana, Kim, Stephanie, Debbie Laliberte, Rudman
Low vision assistive devices are often positioned as enabling continued social participation and engagement by older adults in everyday activities; however, previous research suggests that the use of such technologies is restricted by various environmental factors. With little attention...
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Independent living with mobility restrictions: older people's perceptions of their out-of-home mobility
| Contributor(s):: Luoma-Halkola, Henna, Häikiö, Liisa
We studied older people's perceptions of how they organise their out-of-home mobility and independent living when they face mobility restrictions, based on seven focus groups with older people (N = 28) from a suburb in Finland. This article provides an everyday life view of how the ability...
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Understanding the Experiences of Elderly Bereaved Men and the Bond with Their Pets
| Contributor(s):: Thompson, Monique C.
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Animal-Assisted Therapy in Middle-Aged and Older Patients With Schizophrenia: A Randomized Controlled Trial
| Contributor(s):: Chen, T. T., Hsieh, T. L., Chen, M. L., Tseng, W. T., Hung, C. F., Chen, C. R.
Objective: Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) has the potential to improve the symptomology, negative emotions, and level of well-being in older adults, as well as patients with mental illness. However, there remains limited evidence supporting the treatment efficacy of AAT in middle-aged and older...
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The Relation Between Pet Ownership, Anxiety, and Depressive Symptoms in Late Life: Propensity Score Matched Analyses
| Contributor(s):: Bolstad, Courtney J., Porter, Ben, Brown, Cynthia J., Kennedy, Richard E., Nadorff, Michael R.
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Dog Walking and the Social Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Loneliness in Older Adults
| Contributor(s):: Carr, Dawn, Friedmann, Erika, Gee, Nancy R., Gilchrist, Chelsea, Sachs-Ericsson, Natalie, Koodaly, Lincy
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Effects of a Nutritional Supplement on Cognitive Function in Aged Dogs and on Synaptic Function of Primary Cultured Neurons
| Contributor(s):: Maria Elena Pero, Laura Cortese, Vincenzo Mastellone, Raffaella Tudisco, Nadia Musco, Anna Scandurra, Biagio D’Aniello, Giuseppe Vassalotti, Francesca Bartolini, Pietro Lombardi
The objective of this research was to investigate the efficacy of DìSeniorTM, a nutraceutical formulated to improve cognitive functions in elderly dogs. To this purpose, some clinical and metabolic investigations and a spatial navigation test were performed in treated and untreated dogs....
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Companion animals likely do not spread COVID-19 but may get infected themselves
| Contributor(s):: Anna Csiszar, Ferenc Jakab, Teresa G. Valencak, Zsófia Lanszki, Gábor Endre Tóth, Gábor Kemenesi, Stefano Tarantini, Vince Fazekas-Pongor, Zoltan Ungvari
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a highly contagious infectious disease caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). From the epidemiological data, the picture emerges that the more severe etiopathologies among COVID-19 patients are found in elderly...
