The Development of Animal-Assisted Intervention

By Shels
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    Development of Animal-Assisted Intervention

  • Period: to

    Development of Animal-Assisted Intervention

  • Dr John Locke advised giving children pets so that they could learn to be gentle and have responsibilty for others

  • York Retreat, England, led by William Tuke. Mentally ill patients were allowed to wander the courtyards and gardens that were full of small domestic animals, proven to be effective tools for socialisation

  • Florence Nightingale states 'a small pet is often an excellent companion for the sick, for long chronic cases especially'

  • Bethlem Hospital, England, added animals to the ward greatly influencing the morale of the patients living there.

  • Bethel, West Germany, centre for epileptic patients as well as other mental disorders began implementing animals into treatment plans

  • Sigman Freud incorporated his Chow Chow Jo-Fi in his clinical practice

  • St Elizabeth's Hospital, Washington DC, animal visitation used in a mental health programme

  • The Army Air Force Convalescent Centre, USA, used dogs, horses and other farm animals to rehabilitate airmen

  • The Ross family founded Green Chimneys a school for special needs children situated on a farm

  • Professor Boris Levinson introduced and documented the way companion animals could hasten the development of a rapport between therapist and patient

  • Lima State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, social worker David Lee presented the inmates with small animals and found a reduction in the number of fights and suicide attempts nearly ceased altogether and relationships between staff and inmates improve

  • Leo K. Bustad, a veterinarian and Michael, J. McCulloch a psychiatrist, founded the Delta Society, a human-services organisation dedicated to improving people's health and well-being through positive interactions with animals

  • Centre for the Interaction of Animals and Society, research centre within the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine established

  • Dr Samuel and Elizabeth Corson, provided individuals in an institutional setting with their own dog or cat for the duration of a study and found most responded favourably

  • The Society for Companion Animal Studies founded to study the human-companion animal bond

  • Friedmann et al. studied coronary heart disease and found that pet owners lived longer than people who did not own pets

  • Prison Pet Partnership Program, inmates train special dogs that would assist a disbles person

  • Pets As Therapy programme initiated

  • Edward O. Wilson's Biophilia Hypothesis, an idea that humans evolved s creatures deeply enmeshed with the intricacies of nature, and that we still have this affinity with nature ingrained in our genotype

  • The National Institutes of Health takes an interest in the health benefits of human-animal interactions

  • J.K. Vormbrock and J.M. Grossberg reviewed physiologicl effects of petting and talking to dogs and found that blood pressure was lowest while petting the dogs

  • Therapet visitation programme initiated

  • J. Vormbrock and J. Grossberg found in a study that petting dogs can lower blood pressure

  • International Association for Human-Animal Interaction Organisation formed

  • The International Society for Anthrozoology formed

  • Project Pooch prison-based dog training programme for young male offenders started

  • Dr Barker and Dr Dawson found anxiety levels were significantly reduced in patients with mood and psychotic disorders after a session of AAT

  • The International Society for Animal-Assisted Therapy founded