Pets offer unconditional love and companionship to everyone they come across. When seniors plan to age in place, they may not think about how much pets could offer them to improve their quality of life. There are lots of ways to incorporate pets into their lives, even if seniors don’t feel comfortable having pets themselves. Home care services can do a lot to make pet therapy easier for seniors to access.

What Is Pet Therapy?

Pet therapy is a specific type of interaction between animals and seniors. The animals in question could be dogs, cats, birds, hamsters, and other types of animals that might be family pets. These interactions could be formal visits from therapy animals, but they could also involve pets that seniors adopt or own themselves.

Reducing Loneliness

Spending time with pets helps to reduce loneliness and isolation, especially for seniors who have limited mobility or other health challenges. When seniors experience pet therapy from a formal therapy animal organization, they also get interactions with the people who bring the animals to them to visit. Therapy animals offer support without judging seniors.

Boosting Mood and Busting Stress

Petting or playing with animals releases a chemical from the brain called oxytocin, which is a hormone that helps seniors feel calmer and happier. Spending time with animals also helps to reduce cortisol levels. Cortisol is a stress hormone, so reducing it alleviates anxiety and depression. Pets can also give seniors a way to express themselves and how they are feeling without embarrassment or awkwardness, which can further help them reduce stress because they’re not bottling up those emotions.

Encouraging Physical Activity

If seniors own pets themselves, they can experience benefits like increased physical activity because of the care needs their pets might have. Elder care providers can help seniors to establish routines for walking a dog or caring for a pet in other ways that might involve moving more. These activities have to be handled regularly to keep pets healthy, so they also help to keep seniors healthier as well. Sometimes seniors may even decide that they want to become more active in general so that they can keep up with their pet’s needs.

Lowered Blood Pressure

For seniors with cardiovascular illnesses like high blood pressure, owning pets or spending time around therapy animals can help to lower heart rates and reduce blood pressure. Home care providers can remind seniors to monitor these vital signs, too, and track how much improvement seniors see over time with these concerns. That information can be helpful later at doctor’s appointments.

There are a lot of variables to consider when it comes to seniors and pet therapy. Home care providers can help families to coordinate visits with pet therapy providers. They can also help seniors to establish routines for healthy pets if seniors decide they want to have a pet of their own. Regardless of their decision, spending time around animals can offer some seriously positive benefits to aging adults that might be difficult to reproduce in other ways.

If you or an aging loved one are considering home care in Dover, NH, please contact the caring staff at Assisting Hands Home Care – Seacoast NH today! 603-824-8200

Assisting Hands Home Care – Seacoast NH provides exceptional home in Portsmouth, Rye, New Castle, North Hampton, Hampton, Stratham, Exeter, Durham, Dover, Seabrook, Greenland, Rochester, Hampton Falls and surrounding areas.