Assistive animals are trained to provide for different needs and disabilities, and they can be a catalyst for patient success. These animals can help in various ways, such as:
- Neurological Functioning
- Sensory Support
- Mobility
- Therapy
- Offer Comfort and Companionship
So, What Are the Different Roles of Assistive Animals?
In our lives, assistive animals can enrich many areas, especially for those with a disability or who need the comfort of an animal to maintain a healthy, independent lifestyle. Animals can offer help through their unique characteristics; for example, dogs have a fantastic sense of smell, whereas horses can be a docile, friendly riding partner. So what jobs do these animals take on?
- Emotonal Support Animals
- Pschiatric Service Animals
- Medical Detection Dogs
- Disability-Assistance Animals
- Guide Dogs
- Autism Assistance Dogs
- Assisted Psychotherapy Animals
- Hearing Assistance Dogs
What do Emotional Support Animals do?
Animals can offer comfort in a way humans can’t. Animals don’t judge, and this quality lends itself to those seeking therapy/counselling or who need an animal companion.
What is the Role of Psychiatric Service Animals?
Psychiatric Service Animals are trained to perform roles that the owner cannot complete or requires prompts to complete. For example, people with an anxiety disorder may have a Psychiatric Service Animal that can predict panic attacks, and it will be trained to give support to the owner pre-panic attack, by picking up on heat rate.
What is the Role of a Medical Detection Dog?
Medical detection dogs use their enhanced sense of smell to detect medication. Scientists are also looking into the use of these dogs to detect illnesses such as Cancer.
What do Disability-Assistance Animals do?
For a disabled person, activities of daily living can be a struggle and prevent a person from being independent. An assistance dog can be trained to help the owner carry out ADLs such as transferring, toileting and dressing.
What’s the Role of Guide Dogs?
Guide dogs, one we are all familiar with, are helpful to those who lack vision. They judge special awareness keeping the owner away from danger and guiding them to safety.
What Do Autism Assistance Dogs Do?
Autism assistance dogs are typically used for paediatric help as more research has been conducted on the positive effects of children and assistive dogs. However, as you may know, those with autism can have a more polite word for immature mentality, which could mean we see the use of assistance dogs in the days of autistic adults in the future.
Assisted Psychotherapy Animals
Many types of animals can be used in animal-assisted therapy, ATT for short, which includes typical pets such as dogs, cats and guinea pigs but can include cows, birds and dolphins. Depending on the patient and animal, these therapy sessions may be conducted on a one-to-one basis or as a group.
Animal-assisted therapy comes in many forms and is an educational tool helping to learn to care for animals, caring for farm animals, grooming and pet health.
What Support Do Hearing Assistance Dogs Offer?
For people with a lack of hearing or completely deaf, a hearing assistance dog may be placed in their home. They are trained to distinguish the difference between doorbells, alarm clocks and smoke alarms.
Tenura Products to Help you Care for Your Pet
Animals are tricky to look after. They have many needs and are a costly expense. The clean-up after a pet is also a constant, but you can use Tenura products to help make life with a pet more effortless.
If you would like to explore Tenura Products to Help you Care for your pet you can via our blog. For example, placing food and water bowls on a Tenura Extreme mat can prevent them from sliding.