HR4RS stamp
Nora Fernandez Fernandez
One more year, the Chair Animals and Society of the URJC, in collaboration with the association of experts Bitacora (formerly PsychoAnimal), launches the “Huellas de Colores” project.
This is the first program of therapeutic activities in which Animal Assisted Interventions (IAA) are incorporated for minors admitted to a pediatric ICU, developing since 2019 in a pioneering way at the Hospital Universitario 12 de Octubre in Madrid.
Thus, last June, the face-to-face sessions of this program resumed after the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, carrying out interventions with dogs in the Pediatric Intensive Care and Resuscitation Unit -UCIP-REA- physically at Hospital 12 de October.
The therapies have been carried out until the end of 2022 with patients with an age range ranging from 4 months to 17 years, admitted for complications of diseases such as leukemia, tumors, lymphomas, pneumonia, respiratory failure or atresia in the esophagus; with exceptions in the cases of those who did not like dogs or who were allergic to them, as well as immunosuppressed patients or those who did not have the permission of their parents for this activity.
“During the last months, the face-to-face sessions have been carried out with Alma and Ceo, three and four-year-old dogs that have visited the Unit to interact with the admitted children, having been previously selected by the health professionals. For two hours, this activity is a distraction for children and their families, since, through this distracting, playful and leisure element, they receive a new stimulus that allows them to express their emotions and escape the reason that makes them hospitalized in the ICU. ; evidencing significant positive differences both before and after the intervention”, explains Nuria Máximo, director of the URJC Animal and Society Chair.
Thus, the satisfactory results of this activity are based on the fact that the interaction with these dogs achieves that the admitted boys and girls improve their mood, decrease their perception of pain, increase self-efficacy, motivation and commitment to their own health for the emotionally positive experiences that these animals cause them. In addition, these therapies generate, both in them and in their families, an active role in their life situation, which allows opening a line of non-pharmacological approach for these clinical situations.
In this sense, it should be noted that, from the first phase of this project, it was possible to quantify that minors admitted in a serious situation experienced a reduction in pain of up to three points -according to the usual scales for measuring this variable. The patients also experienced a reduction in the level of anxiety and other symptoms associated with each pathology after the visit with the dog.
"This research project has as its main objective the humanization of hospital stays for minors, since we have been able to verify that this support for clinical treatment that is carried out through dog-assisted interventions significantly favors their mood states, while alleviating their levels of stress, anguish or fear and, in addition, we also come to interact with the families, working on the emotional part of coping with the situation, when the age of the minors is too young to interact with the dog. The sessions are carried out in a personalized way according to the needs of each minor, so that some work on movement and others, the emotional part and, on the other hand, there are more possibilities such as group work, which is very convenient for them. well to relate, in case this is possible ”, highlights Nuria Máximo.