Alert Dogs
Role
Care staff
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Advise care station, local or remote, regarding the occurrence of any trained event by means of dog activated buzzer. (Resident leaves bed / home)
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Assist nursing staff with observations and patient care.
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Give care staff a relief from the minute to minute stress.
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Warning at the time of an emergency both inside and outside the facility. (fire, gas).
Therapy staff
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Development and delivery of mutually agreed specific animal assisted occupational and therapeutic programs.
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Provide added resource to visiting professional therapists.
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Assistance and integration into regular therapy sessions and daily schedule ensuring better participation.
Facility
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General moral boost.
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Improvement in the quality of family visitations.
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Fetch specific items for bed ridden patients.
Residents
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Gives people the ability to “own” a pet and to obtain all the advantages even in circumstances where private circumstances do not allow.
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Provide reward activities.
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Provide both outdoor and indoor physical activities.
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Provide impetus to socialisation and communication.
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Resident support during night hours if they are unable to sleep.
Butler Challenge; “to add quality to life and not only years”
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Rapid increases in population ageing and the associated rise in the prevalence of dementia have created many challenges for the care of older people with dementia.
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As the majority of people now living in residential aged care facilities now have dementia, the need to maximise the quality of life for this group is increasingly recognised.
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Special facility dogs have been trained to address such a need.Enabling service dogs to perform such a function required specialised training together with ongoing support.
It is evident from this long term study that there are many benefits from having a resident dog in a nursing home. Animals may play a role in helping residents adjust to their surroundings by providing a link with their prior home life. The evidence suggests that only where a resident dog programme is not an option, nursing homes should encourage visiting dogs and/or visiting people
Patricia Crowley-Robinson * , Douglas C. Fenwick, Judith K. Blackshaw
