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Pets Come to Visit The comfort of furry friends More NurseWeek Features  Smoke-Free Zone Nurses and patients tackle nicotine addictionBloodless Survival Surgical techniques to use when transfusion drops out of the equation When Patricia Stevens, RN, MS, NNP, was in the hospital in pre-term labor with her twins, she was scared, anxious, and uncomfortable. She wasn’t up to seeing her friends, and she could barely tolerate seeing her family. But there was one loved one she was open to seeing: her dog. Stevens, a neonatal nurse practitioner with the University of California, San Francisco Children’s Hospital, was finally allowed to see the animal she knew could make her feel happier than any pain medication.“I finally talked the doctors into letting me go — in a wheelchair — to the entrance of the hospital while my husband brought our dog to meet me,” Stevens recalls. “I was in tears, so joyful as she saw me and got excited and ran toward me.”Stevens is not alone in finding comfort from her pet while in the care of a medical facility. As research and anecdotal evidence reinforces the health benefits of the bond between pets and their owners, hospitals are starting to allow pets as visitors and roommates in long-term care facilities across the country.Champion of the causeOf those patients who are allowed to see their beloved pets while staying in a medical care facility, most owe thanks to Sandi Martin, RN, BSN, NCBF. Though Martin is the director of community outreach for the University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics in Salt Lake City, for the past 25 years she has also been a steadfast promoter of the importance of allowing patients’ own pets to visit them in the hospital.Among the many benefits of doing so, Martin says that the top three are: motivating a patient to heal faster (work harder in therapy, etc.) so a patient can return home to the pet; bringing some normalcy into an environment that is anything but normal; and providing unconditional support for the patient, because they don’t care if the patient has scars, smells funny, or has lost a limb.“For many patients, their pet is as much a member of the family as human members are, so why not include them in visitation?” Martin asks, adding that such visitations have the potential for decreasing the patient’s anxiety and blood pressure. Allowing the pet to visit daily also gives the patient something positive to look forward to, she says.Linda Bell, RN, MSN, echoes Martin’s sentiment. “In addition to the benefits of a regular pet visitation program, there is a level of anxiety reduction and relaxation that takes place when a patient is allowed time with their pet,” says Bell, a clinical practice specialist with the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, located in Aliso Viejo, Calif.”Some patients comment that it’s better than a shot of morphine,” laughs Lea Ann Matura, RN, RN, NP-C, CCRN. Matura is an advanced practice nurse with Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas, where pet visits are a common practice.Impressive resultsMatura has seen the dramatic benefits of personal pet visitation first-hand and remembers the first time Methodist Hospital allowed a pet to visit its owner, a woman with lung cancer and little will to live.“This was a patient who hardly ever woke up or spoke, never got out of bed and rarely ate anything,” Matura recalls. “But as soon as her dog got up on her bed and ran up to her face, the patient sat up and was talkative, her face pinked up, and she was a totally different person.Though not all results may be as remarkable at Matura’s, at the very least a pet will provide a respite from needles, pills, and IVs. In fact, when 31 pet visits were observed by the Department of Pediatrics’ Division of Cardiology at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, researchers found that pet visits relieved stress, normalized the hospital milieu, and improved patient and parent morale. These findings were related in the October 2002 Journal of Pediatric Nursing article “Acceptability and impact of pet visitation on a pediatric cardiology inpatient unit.”It’s no wonder, then, that at Sutter Medical Center in Sacramento, Calif., there’s a policy allowing personal pet visitation on the pediatric ward. “We found so many children have a connection to their pets at home,” explains Amy Medovoy, child life program coordinator. “This brings them some semblance of a normal life, and we feel if we fill these types of needs, the child will heal better.”The bond between pet and owner continues into adulthood. Eloise Zitlau, RN, a manager of the medical/surgical unit at Anaheim Memorial Medical Center in Calif., has noticed this bond on her unit. “On several occasions, the patients were terminal, and allowing pets to visit brought comfort to all involved,” Zitlau explains. “Patients have also requested that their pets be allowed to visit when their stay has been an extended one. We have allowed these visits, and have found that again it brings comfort to the patients, family, and the pets themselves. It is amazing to watch how happy both the patient and animals are to see one another.”At the Fountains Retirement Communities, the philosophy is pet-positive. “We really encourage our residents to interact with a variety of animals and pets,” says Cindy Winn, RN, who works at The Fountains at La Cholla in Tucson, Ariz. “I think the connection between pets and owners is extremely important, and [honestly] we can’t see taking one other thing away from [residents] when they move here.” Next Page |
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