Animal-Assisted Intervention Improves Pain Perception in Polymedicated Geriatric Patients with Chronic Joint Pain: A Clinical Trial

Maylos Rodrigo-Claverol, Carles Casanova-Gonzalvo, Belén Malla-Clua, Esther Rodrigo-Claverol, Júlia Jové-Naval and Marta Ortega-Bravo
Additional contact information
Maylos Rodrigo-Claverol: Primary Health Care Center Bordeta-Magraners, Catalan Institute of Health, 25001 Lleida, Spain
Carles Casanova-Gonzalvo: Nursing and Physiotherapy Faculty, University of Lleida, 25198 Lleida, Spain
Belén Malla-Clua: Primary Health Care Center Bordeta-Magraners, Catalan Institute of Health, 25001 Lleida, Spain
Esther Rodrigo-Claverol: Primary Health Care Center Primer de Maig, Catalan Institute of Health, 25003 Lleida, Spain
Júlia Jové-Naval: Primary Health Care Center Bordeta-Magraners, Catalan Institute of Health, 25001 Lleida, Spain
Marta Ortega-Bravo: Research Support Unit Lleida, Fundació Institut Universitari per a la recerca a l’Atenció Primària de Salut Jordi Gol i Gurina (IDIAPJGol), 25007 Barcelona, Spain

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 16, 1-20

Abstract: Chronic joint pain is associated to an increase in the consumption of medication and decrease in life quality in elderly people, which requires developing non-pharmacological treatments. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectivity of a group intervention, based on animal-assisted therapy and applied to elderly people with chronic joint pain and polymedication, regarding the decrease of chronic pain, use of analgesics and improvement of life quality. A randomized controlled trial, two arms and open-label was conducted in a Primary Health Center. Twelve weekly sessions of kinesitherapy; in the EG, these exercises were performed with the additional assistance of the therapy dog. A total of 52 participants (22 Control Group (CG), 30 EG), average age 77.50 (±7.3), women 90.4%. A significant reduction on post-intervention values of pain ? = ?0.67(?1.27, ?0.08), p = 0.03 and pain induced insomnia ? = ?0.53(?1.01, ?0.05), p = 0.03 was found in EG for increasing baseline values. Animal-assisted therapy leads to an additional reduction in the perception of pain and pain induced insomnia in individuals with higher baseline severity. The presence of the dog improves the attachment to intervention and the satisfaction of the participants.

Keywords: animal-assisted therapy; chronic pain; elderly; primary health care (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/16/2843/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/16/2843/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:16:p:2843-:d:256091

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().