‘Pets as therapy’. This is a phrase that you may have heard and with good reason. Pets are excellent for keeping us healthy and are often used as therapy, especially for those getting on in years.
Of course, you don’t have to be older to benefit from having a pet around. It’s just that as we age, or enter our maturing years, a pet helps to keep a greater focus on the now. Many elderly citizens worry about their future, their tomorrow. What if it doesn’t come? A pet, by its needs and its actions, helps to keep them thinking of ‘right now’.
Having this mindset is particularly helpful for those who are battling with a disease. Their thoughts of tomorrow may bring fear and unnecessary worry. These feelings of anxiousness can hugely decrease or even cease to exist once they start caring for a pet.
This is a major reason why owning a pet can help you stay mentally and emotionally healthy in your later years.
Increased Chances for Physical Activity
If a person has a dog, chances are they are going to take it for a walk. Therefore, their physical activity will be stimulated to a much higher degree than if they keep a goldfish. However, regardless of what type of pet a person has, they still have to care for it. So they still have to get up and do something, although exertion levels will vary depending on the pet.
Better Ability to Cope with Anxiety
Elderly patients and psychiatric patients who are pet owners have been found to be more capable of managing their anxiety. This is part of the reason why several nursing homes have started to incorporate an animal program, or as stated before, using ‘pets as therapy’, which allows elderly residents to own a pet.
Improved Ability to Tolerate Social Isolation
Elderly citizens who own pets face lower risks of depression because their pets help them better tolerate social isolation. This is especially true for seniors who have a mobility problem and live on their own.
For elderly pet owners, having a pet means having a great companion who provides them with friendship and unconditional love that they may no longer receive from their fellow human beings.
This may be due to reduced opportunities for social contact. Reasons can include outliving peers and simply a lack of interest from friends or family.
Many researchers agree that the most serious ailment that an elderly person can have is not heart disease, diabetes or cancer, but loneliness. When loneliness starts to engulf an elderly person’s home, their depressed state makes them much more vulnerable to any medical condition.
Lowered Risk of Heart Disease
Being a pet owner leads to both a lowered risk of stress and an increased rate of survival from a heart attack. Experts have found that pets help stroke victims recover more quickly as they find strength from their pet’s presence. A survey was conducted where over 5,000 people underwent cardiovascular checkups and evaluations. The pet owners showed significantly lower risks of symptoms linked to cardiovascular disease.
Owning and caring for a pet is an excellent way of helping to stay mentally, emotionally and physically healthy as you age, while giving and receiving love at the same time.
