Vårdhundens effekter på äldres hälsa och välbefinnande
-En litteraturöversikt
Background: With increasing age follows higher risks of conditions and illnesses which can cause a decrease in health and wellbeing. A meaningful social environment can positively impact the physical health of older people. Dogs are increasingly being used for different purposes within health care and animal assisted therapy aims to improve people?s physical, social, emotional and cognitive function.Aim: The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of animal assisted therapy on older people?s health and wellbeing.Methods: A literature review where searches for academic articles in databases PubMed, Cinahl and PsychInfo were performed. The searches resulted in 14 articles which were selected for further review. Two articles were excluded since they did not obtain adequate quality. Relevant results from each article were compiled and further classified into subcategories and main categories.Results: Animal assisted therapy reduces depressive symptoms and agitated behaviors as well as increases social interactions among older people. Hence it reduces loneliness and participants expressed joy and pleasure when interacting with the dog. There was a marginal improvement of cognitive function. No correlation was found between animal assisted therapy and medication.Conclusion: Improvements of health and wellbeing were found, however more research is needed to enable an implementation of animal assisted therapy to a greater extent than today.