The Animal-assisted Intervention reducing Anxiety in an Elderly Patient Population

        The topic of this essay is related to animal assisted therapy and intervention, which can be useful in dealing the anxiety level of older adults and elder patients. This topic is chosen, because it has so many aspects to talk about in healthcare, providing new ways to treat anxiety and such problems especially in elderly patients. It has been observed through the research that both animal assisted therapies as well as pet ownership are getting popular in various parts of the world especially in United States. It is an interesting topic to explore that how human animal interaction is becoming a sconce that how animals’ relationship can be used to make a positive impact on well being and health of patients. However, it is also important to keep in mind that human animal interaction is not an easy concept, as it has various challenges to deal with. It is a complex relationship, which has to consider so many aspects so that it actually can be helpful in animal assisted therapy to deal with therapy and related problems of elder age patients (O'Haire, Guérin, & Kirkham, 2017)

    Various research studies have been conducted to collect evidence that is there any positive relationship between animal assisted therapy and rehabilitation of patients dealing with anxiety and depression. One such study was conducted in 2009, where dog assisted intervention was analyzed to see its impact on hospitalized patients having certain level of depression and anxiety. The study collected data from 12 hospitalized patients dealing with depression, and age of these patients was 40 plus, which means that they are considered to be older adults. The results of the study showed great results as it was found that dog assisted therapy was actually useful in reducing state of depression in majority of patients. The expectation was also made that if dog presence would be increased in a proper manner, it can have more positive impact on therapeutic practice, where therapists and patents both will feel motivated (Hoffmann, Lee, Wertenauer, & Ricken, 2009). It has been observed that various kinds of animals are used in animal assisted intervention such as dogs, fish, birds and cats. This research area can be explored more because pet research has not shown quality, which it should have shown. But fact of the matter is that people do have positive feeling towards animals and that’s why they have pets in their homes, which suggest that area of research can be explored more to see how human animal interaction can be used in a positive manner, especially for older age patients (Cherniack & Cherniack, 2014)

After analyzing the evidence question that if animal assisted therapy can have positive impact on anxiety level of elderly patients, the answer can be “yes, it can be useful in doing so, but not without facing various challenges and issues. The issue is that pet ownership or animal assisted therapy can be costly, and patients can also have the risk of getting certain infection or viruses from these animals. Such issues are critical to be considered while conducting research on this topic, but this animal assisted research should be increased and it should be given more focus by healthcare stakeholders.

Section 2: Formulated PICO The Animal assisted Intervention reducing Anxiety in an Elderly Patient Population

Section 3: Advanced CINAHL Search of The Animal assisted Intervention reducing Anxiety in an Elderly Patient Population

    The good thing about CINAHIL search is that it offers so many options which may not be available in other search guides. For instance, if only peer reviewed articles are required, and then this can be done in CINAHL search by ticking peer reviewed section. It means that only peer reviewed articles will be shown after clicking the search button. Even if you are trying to find articles, which have been authored by nurses, you can do that by ticking the section of “First Author is Nurse”. If you want to add patient criteria like males or females’ patients, then you can add that in the “sex” section. It also provided various search modes such as Boolean/Phrase, find all my search items, Find any of search items, and Smart-Text searching. A picture is given below to show

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References of The Animal assisted Intervention reducing Anxiety in an Elderly Patient Population

Cherniack, E. P., & Cherniack, A. R. (2014). The Benefit of Pets and Animal-Assisted Therapy to the Health of Older Individuals. 1-9.

Hoffmann, A. O., Lee, A. H., Wertenauer, F., & Ricken, R. (2009). Dog-assisted intervention significantly reduces anxiety in hospitalized patients with major depression. European Journal of Integrative Medicine , 1 (3), 145-148 .

O'Haire, M. E., Guérin, N. A., & Kirkham, A. C. (2017). Human–Animal Interaction and Older Adults: An Overview. Frontiers in Psychology , 8.