When Barbara Pierzakowski enters a nursing or rehab facility for a visit, she immediately becomes the center of attention. But what really grabs attention are her dogs.
Pierzakowski is nursing-home team manager and a regular volunteer — along with her black standard poodles, Toby and Susie — for Hand In Paw, a Birmingham-based nonprofit organization dedicated to the use of animals in therapy capacities. During her weekly visits, Pierzakowski sees senior adults of all ages and health conditions light up at the sight and touch of her dogs.
“I see it every week at the nursing homes and assisted-living facilities,” she said. “These dogs offer the patients unconditional love, and the patients really need and respond to that.”
In November 2005, the American Heart Association caught the attention of the health care world when it released the results of a clinical study that confirmed that interaction with pet therapy teams has a measurable positive effect on hospital patients.
During the study, Animal Assisted Therapy and Heart Failure, researchers discovered that after a 12-minute visit with a therapy dog, hospitalized heart-failure patients had lower blood pressure, lower levels of harmful hormones and less anxiety than those patients who had been visited by a human volunteer or had been left alone.
In recent years, health researchers have taken the relationship between people and their pets into the laboratory, examining the health effects that come with animal interaction. The research has shown many positive correlations, including several studies that suggest that pet owners recover from serious illnesses faster and even live longer than those without pets. These studies, however, have only confirmed what volunteers for organizations like Hand In Paw have seen during their pet-therapy visits.
Though many of the patients Pierzakowski visits are dealing with long-term health conditions, both she and the staff members at the facilities she visits have seen near miracles when the dogs come with her.
During one nursing home outing, Pierzakowski and Toby were visiting the room of an elderly woman who is capable of speaking but normally does not. The woman’s daughter and a nurse’s aide were also there for the visit.
“The nurse’s aide kept trying to get the woman to pet Toby, and finally the lady looked at her daughter and said, ‘I’m not much for dogs.’ The aide said she never says one word, much less a whole sentence, so the whole point was that she spoke,” Pierzakowski said.
During a visit with another patient who does not speak, Pierzakowski was talking to the activity coordinator while Toby sat next to the patient’s wheelchair. As the two were talking, they heard the woman giggle.
“The lady had a box of popcorn in her lap, and she was feeding the popcorn to the dog,” Pierzakowski said. “Every time the dog licked her hand, she giggled. Not only was she showing emotion, she was happy enough to giggle.”
Some of Pierzakowski’s favorite moments have come with Alzheimer’s patients. “Often when you walk into the Alzheimer’s unit, the television is on or heads are down, but as soon as the dogs come in, they almost fight to see who gets to pet the dog first,” she said. “One day, we walked into the unit and they all broke out singing ‘You Are My Sunshine’ to my dogs — both verses.”
Cynthia Fields, activities coordinator at Shelby Ridge Rehab Select in Alabaster, said that the pet-therapy visits are the highlight of the week for many patients at her facility.
“Most of our residents had pets at home, usually dogs or cats,” she said. “So they really enjoy when the animals come. Their faces light up and it makes them more cheerful.”
Fields said the patients not only look forward to the animal visits but they also talk about them long after the visit. She has even seen residents who have always been fearful of animals reach out and pet the therapy dogs, much to the surprise of their family members.
“The animals are very well-behaved, so they don’t scare the patients at all,” she said.
Pierzakowski has found that some staff members look forward to the animal visits as much as patients. “The animals provide a diversion from the regular routine,” she said. “The visits brighten their day and give them something to focus on besides the aches and pains and needs of their patients.”
The “Golden Rule” is also at work in her volunteer efforts.
“One day, that could be me sitting in that nursing home waiting for someone to come visit, so I am happy that it brings them joy and gives them something to focus on rather than the fact that they’re lonely or that no one else has visited them,” Pierzakowski said. “And besides what better way for me to show the love I have for my animals than to share it with someone else?”
For information about Hand In Paw, call 205-322-5144 or visit www.handinpaw.org
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