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Overall Health Benefits of Pets

Research suggests interaction with pets can promote health and well-being, providing companionship, emotional support and comfort.

Pets have been found to help:

  • Reduce stress
  • Improve mood and emotional health
  • Support heart health
  • Encourage physical activity
  • Promote social skills

Cognitive Benefits of Pets

Pet ownership has benefits that extend to brain health. Research indicates that pet ownership is linked to increased cognitive and brain health throughout the adult lifetime.1 Pet ownership can help slow cognitive decline while also lowering stress and providing companionship.2

Pets and Alzheimer’s Disease 
 and Related Dementias

Benefits of service pets Benefits of service pets

For individuals and caregivers facing a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, there are many questions and decisions to consider. What role do pets play in future plans?

Studies have found that for those with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, owning a pet can have a positive impact on daily life and might slow disease progression.2,3 Pet ownership can also have a positive impact on Alzheimer’s disease patients, offering consistent companionship and stress relief.3

Research suggests that for those impacted by Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, pets offer a sense of calm and normalcy, focus and a diversion and distraction from diagnosis or disease progression; they’ve also been found to help temper feelings of aggression or agitation.3,4 In fact, as Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias progress, pet owners report lower frequency of anxiety and verbal aggression.3

People with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias can receive mental support from their pets – and notably, caregivers can also benefit from pet ownership as pets help to relieve stress and anxiety.5

Supporting Roles

Animals support those coping with illness in many ways – whether they are companion, emotional support, therapy or service animals.

Learn more about the different types of these animals below:

Companion Animal

Most pets are considered companion animals, providing their human owners with companionship. They live in the home and are a part of everyday life. In addition to dogs and cats, companion animals could also include other animals such as birds, rabbits, hamsters or reptiles.
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Emotional Support Dogs

Emotional support animals (ESAs) can help provide emotional support, comfort and security by easing anxiety and depression or reducing loneliness. In spite of this, they are not trained to perform tasks or duties to aid someone with a disability. ESAs are prescribed to individuals by mental health professionals. Dogs and cats are the most common ESAs, but any domesticated pet can be an ESA.
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Therapy Dogs

Therapy dogs are trained to provide psychological or physiological therapy to individuals and are commonly used in schools, nursing homes and hospitals. They can bring comfort and joy to people in need.

Therapy training is not as extensive as service dog training, and typically includes an obedience class, exposing dogs to a variety of situations they might encounter in a therapeutic setting and a certification class.

Therapy Dogs

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Service Dogs

Service dogs are rigorously trained to perform tasks and provide support for people living with a number of different health conditions.

While there is no standard process, training a service dog typically follows these stages:

  • Puppy enrichment: From birth, service dog puppies begin to experience the world and prepare for their job ahead.
  • Foundational skills and socialization: During these phases, puppies learn basic commands, spend time with people and are introduced to different environmental settings to help with socialization.
  • Advanced training: Dogs learn service dog skills and participate in activities related to the exact needs of their partners such as tracking, medical alert, retrieval and hearing. Based on where the dog excels, it will be matched based on the specific needs of an individual; however, there is no guarantee animals will provide a benefit to every person.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) protects the rights of people with disabilities to be accompanied by their service dog in public places. Emotional assistance dogs, therapy dogs and pet dogs don't have any special rights under the ADA.

Service Dogs
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References:

  1. McDonough IM, Erwin HB, Sin NL, Allen RS. Pet ownership is associated with greater cognitive and brain health in a cross-sectional sample across the adult lifespan. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. 2022;14. doi: http://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2022.953889.

  2. Li Y, Wang W, Zhu L, Yang L, Wu H, Zhang X, Guo L, Lu C. Pet Ownership, Living Alone, and Cognitive Decline Among Adults 50 Years and Older. JAMA Network Open. 2023;6(12). doi: http://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.49241.

  3. Rusanen M, Selander T, Kärkkäinen V, Koivisto A. The Positive Effects of Pet Ownership on Alzheimer's Disease. Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. 2021;84(4):1669-1675. doi: http://doi.org/10.3233/JAD-210557.

  4. What are the Benefits of Pet Ownership and Care Among People With Mild-to-Moderate Dementia? Findings from the IDEAL Programme. Journal of Applied Gerontology. 2020:40(11), 1559-1567. doi: http://doi.org/10.1177/0733464820962619.

  5. Fritz CL, Farver TB, Hart LA, Kass PH. Companion animals and the psychological health of Alzheimer patients' caregivers. Psychological Reports. 1996;78:467-481. doi: http://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1996.78.2.467.