Original studyAnimal-Assisted Therapy and Loneliness in Nursing Homes: Use of Robotic versus Living Dogs
Section snippets
Methods
Residents were interviewed at 3 LTCF in St. Louis, MO. Studies were approved by the IRB at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. Residents were excluded if they scored less than 24 on the the modified mini-mental status exam,19 had allergies to dogs or cats, scored less than 30 on the UCLA loneliness scale, or had a known history of psychiatric disease or Alzheimer’s disease. Recruited individuals were randomized to a group that received no AAT (Control) or to groups that received AAT with
Results
There were no statistical differences among the pretest UCLA loneliness scale scores for the Control (n = 13), AIBO (n = 12), or Dog (n = 13) groups. The mean loneliness score was 45.9 ± 1.16 (n = 38). The delta loneliness scores are shown in Figure 2. ANOVA showed a statistical difference among the groups (F(2, 35) = 37.3, P < .01). Newman-Keuls posttest showed that the Control group (n = 13) was statistically different from the AIBO (P < .05, n = 12) and the Dog (P < .05, n = 13) group, but
Discussion
We found here that elderly residents living in long-term care facilities who received scheduled AAT with either a living or robotic dog were significantly less lonely than those who did not receive AAT (Figure 2). We found no difference between the effectiveness of a living and robotic dog in reducing loneliness. As in a previous study,8 we found a correlation between pretest and posttest loneliness scores and between pretest and delta loneliness, indicating that those who were most lonely
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The authors have no conflicts of interest regarding this article.