Can You Help When It Hurts? Dogs as Potential Pain Relief Stimuli for Children with Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities

Benefits of animal-Assisted interventions in preschool children: A systematic review

“…The authors hypothesized that improvements could be due to changes in the autonomic modulation of children induced by the presence of animals. This could be connected with the findings of Lima et al (2014) where changes in the heart rate were reported. In this regard, previous studies have shown a positive physiological response after being in contact with animals (Odendaal, 2000; Odendaal & Meintjes, 2003), increasing the production of beta-endorphins, dopamine (Odendaal & Meintjes, 2003) or oxytocin (Nagasawa et al, 2009).…”

“…Animals can also provide emotional support and adopt important functions for children as conversational partners, playmates, friends, or family members (McNicholas & Collis, 2000;Triebenbacher, 1998). In this regard, the results of the current systematic review showed improvements in psychosocial outcomes, social function (Kraft et al, 2019), cooperation (Beetz et al, 2015), or smiling behavior (Lima et al, 2014). This is consistent with previous studies, which stated that animals could serve as social catalysts, facilitating the process of interacting with other people (Hart, 2006;McNicholas & Collis, 2000).…”

“…In the non-RCT studies (Table 2), four of them included equines (Champagne & Dugas, 2010; Hamill et al, 2007; Mi et al, 2019; Moriello et al, 2020), and two of them included dogs (Anderson et al, 2019; Lima et al, 2014). In the crossover studies (Table 3), all articles included dogs in the AAI.…”

“…Thus, equine-assisted therapy is helpful in neurological disorders such as cerebral palsy (Funakoshi et al, 2018), and previous studies have shown that horseback riding improves balance, increases trunk/head stability, achieves functional improvements (de Araújo et al, 2013;Encheff, 2008;Kim et al, 2014;Shurtleff et al, 2009). Furthermore, motor skills, balance and pain were also improved after dog-based AAI (Gee et al, 2009;Lima et al, 2014). This could be because there was a high physical component in the dog-based interventions.…”

“…Among the RCT (Table 1), two studies included equines (Beetz et al, 2015;Kraft et al, 2019), one article included dogs (Hill et al, 2020), one article included dolphins (Sánchez et al, 2018) and one article included horseriding simulators (Hemachithra et al, 2020). In the non-RCT studies (Table 2), four of them included equines (Champagne & Dugas, 2010;Hamill et al, 2007;Mi et al, 2019;Moriello et al, 2020), and two of them included dogs (Anderson et al, 2019;Lima et al, 2014). In the crossover studies (Table 3), all articles included dogs in the AAI.…”