A therapy dog's impact on daytime activity and night-time sleep for older persons with Alzheimer's disease: a case study
2014 (English)In: Clinical Nursing Studies, ISSN 2324-7940, E-ISSN 2324-7959, Vol. 2, no 4, p. 80-93Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Background: Animal-Assisted Therapy using dogs have been described as having a calming effect, decrease sundowning and blood-pressure in persons with Alzheimer’s disease. The aim was to investigate how continuous and scheduled visits by a prescribed therapy dog affected daytime and night-time sleep for persons with Alzheimer’s disease.
Methods: In this case study, registration of activity and sleep curves was conducted from five persons with moderate to severe Alzheimer’s disease living at a nursing home, over a period of 16 weeks using an Actiwatch. Data was analysed with descriptive statistics.
Result: The study shows no clear pattern of effect on individual persons daytime activity and sleep when encounter with a therapy dog, but instead points to a great variety of possible different effects that brings an increased activity at different time points, for example during night-time sleep.
Conclusions: Effects from the use of a Animal-Assisted Therapy with a dog in the care of persons with Alzheimer’s disease needs to be further investigated and analysed from a personcentred view including both daytime and nightime activities.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Sciedu Press , 2014. Vol. 2, no 4, p. 80-93
Keywords [en]
Alzheimer's disease, Animal-assisted therapy, Activity, Nursing, Sleep
National Category
Nursing
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-87903DOI: 10.5430/cns.v2n4p80OAI: oai:DiVA.org:oru-87903DiVA, id: diva2:1507735
2020-12-082020-12-082020-12-16Bibliographically approved