Argumentative Essay On Pet Therapy

The amount of people that live in assisted living and nursing homes is over 1.4 billion people in the United States alone (“Nursing Home Care”). This number is high and ever changing, but the numbers only change due to the degradation of people from a functional state to a state of needing help to perform everyday tasks. This feeling of relying on others for everything can cause people go into depression or other mental states. Many people cannot get out of that state with other people, such as staff, around doing activities and exercises along with social gatherings, to keep the mind and motor skills working. While people who work with the residence may use social interaction to fend off loneliness in these facilities, it only works for a short while due to residence not having friends and family around as often due to location or age. There are other things that can help the mood of every person that pet therapy can provide. Pet therapy is a great resource for nursing and assisted living facilities and should be used to help with loneliness, physical ailments, and the loss of
Staff may try to help with activities, games, trips, socials, and entertainers, but some people never leave their rooms to participate. In most facilities, there is no activity that goes room to room seeing if they would like to participate. There is not enough time to do so. Pet assisted therapy, however can do that and be successful in a one on one basis and encourage people to interact if they normally would stay away from the activities planned. The staff is a great source of interaction but many still feel lonely in those situations with no family or old friends. Loneliness is a huge problem in nursing homes and assisted living facilities around the country. Pets can be used to help people with social interactions with many activates that the facility has